


A Snowball's Case in Hell

by shetlandowl



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Accidental Marriage, Alternate Universe - College/University, Does this sound familiar at all? Because it should, F/F, F/M, Getting Together, Harvard University, Law School, M/M, Steve isn't a super soldier he's a super model, and he's going to law school to get his man back
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-28
Updated: 2019-06-04
Packaged: 2020-03-26 11:23:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 27,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19004788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shetlandowl/pseuds/shetlandowl
Summary: This is a story about Steve Rogers, who puts his preferred world of fashion and modeling behind to enroll in Harvard Law School to show a former boyfriend (and prospective fiancé) that he is capable of being "serious."





	1. Believing in yourself never goes out of style

**Author's Note:**

> For better or worse, the first three chapters of this story will follow Legally Blonde very closely, but from there we'll take a minor detour. 
> 
> **Added note, for those who may feel upset/confused about the absence of strict adherence to lawful procedure:** Legally Blonde is not the only inspiration for this story, it just happens to be the main/first. There's at least two other law-related rom coms (which I'm not naming for spoiler reasons). If you desperately want to know what movies they are, my only hint is that the chapter titles are all promotional taglines from the three movies referenced in this story. 
> 
> Finally, in case it isn't obvious: I am leaning into rom-com territory with this fic, not reality. If that is frustrating, then this isn't the story for you.

“Babe, the reason I wanted to come here tonight was to discuss our future.”

Butterflies of excitement fluttered to life in Steve’s heart until he was light-headed with joy. ‘Future.’ A world of possibilities lived in that single little word, and man, what a future they had ahead of them. When Steve had listened to his mom and put his high school job on hold to go to college, he imagined that the best outcome was getting out on the other side debt-free and with a dependable office job. Never in his wildest dreams had Steve imagined that he’d run into the man of his dreams while getting drinks during the intermission of a comedy show on campus. 

Except here he was, two semesters from graduating with his Bachelor’s in cultural anthropology and two minutes from being asked the question he’d been dying to hear for one and a half years. From day one Steve had known that in those confident, adventurous eyes was his future, that there was something special about this man. 

In two more minutes, Steve would say _yes_ to becoming Mr. Brock Rumlow III, son of the governor and a future politician in his own right. If he was even half the man Steve knew him to be, he would be a Congressman before their second wedding anniversary. 

“Nothing would make me happier,” Steve assured him as calmly as he could. His fiance-to-be looked paler than normal, and Steve didn’t envy him the burden of proposing. It was important, and a memory they would cherish for decades to come. It would be second only to their wedding day, and Steve was doing his best to both soak it all in without being too obvious about the love and happiness trying to burst out of him with every breath. 

He had to play it cool. Brock couldn’t know he had guessed the night’s highlight weeks in advance; it would only make him more nervous about getting it right. So Steve did his best to keep one hand on his champagne flute and the other in his lap where Brock couldn’t see his fingers drumming impatiently in his lap. 

“I’ve been thinking, and well, there’s no doubt we're having a lot of fun. These have been some of the happiest years of my life,” Brock explained in steady, tactful words. “But next year I’ll be at Harvard Law, and things will be different. It’s a completely different world. The pressure will be greater, my family will be there, and I’ve realized that it’s finally time that I take steps to grow up and make serious choices in my life. They expect a lot from me; I plan on running for office some day.”

“Of course,” Steve said with great pride, “and you know I fully support that, right? You’re going to do so many great things, Brock.”

“I do, Pookie,” Brock assured him with a quick flash of his smoldering smirk, the one that always left Steve weak in the knees. “But the thing is, if I’m gonna be a senator by the time I’m thirty, I can't keep dicking around.”

Steve nodded sagely in agreement. _Yes: lock this down!_ he resisted shouting, and instead settled for a gentle, “You’re right, Brock. I completely agree.”

“That’s why I think it's time for us to—”

Wedding bells. Crying and applauding family, children laughing. Clinking glasses demanding they kiss over and over again. The flutter of wings as doves are released in celebration of their love—

“I think we should break up.”

The world stopped and all sound ceased to exist. Steve’s whole being went slack in shock. The empty flute fell from his hand and shattered on the restaurant floor, but Steve was the only one who didn’t notice. 

“What?” he breathed, choking back tears. “You, you’re breaking—I thought you were _proposing!_ ”

Steve night as well have accused him of high treason. “Proposing?” he coughed up as his uncomfortable surprise grew into nervous laughter. “Steve, you know as well as I do what it takes to be success in politics. I need a good wife, I need to grow up.”

“You’re—you’re breaking up with me because you don’t think you can be a gay politician?” Steve echoed in disgust. No sooner had reality sunk in than Steve’s tears overwhelmed him, streaming down his face. “And you’ve known this the whole time we’ve been together? All the time you told me you loved me, you were ‘dicking around’? That’s all I’ve been to you, something fun to play with until you wanted a serious life?”

“Steve, that’s not—”

“Then why don’t I deserve to share a more serious life with you, Brock?”

“What we had was serious, Pookie, but it’s a college romance. Gender isn’t the issue, but I need to marry someone… someone more refined.”

“I’m not _refined?_ ”

“Steve, listen. I love you, I just can't marry you. You have no idea the pressure I’m under from my family: I come from five generations of senators. My brother is in the top three at Yale Law. He just got engaged to a Vanderbilt! That’s the kind of person I need to marry,” he added more gently. “An Eisenhower, a Kensington, a Kennedy. Not a first-generation college student who pays his bills as an underwear and swimsuit model.

“I have to think about my future, Steve. I care about you, and believe me, I never expected to be doing this. But one day you’ll look back on this and agree that breaking up was the right thing to do for both of us.”

“No,” Steve insisted, shaking his head adamantly. “No, I won’t, you’re wrong. How could it be the right thing if we’re not together?”

Brock’s face fell. Only then did it occur to Steve that this wasn’t going how Brock had planned it, meaning that _he had planned_. Days, weeks, maybe even months ago, Brock had planned this moment. How many nights had they spent together after Brock had decided Steve wasn’t good enough? How many times had Steve reminded Brock of how much he loved him without knowing the reply he got in return was a hollow lie? 

For all that he loved him, Steve couldn’t bear to look at him another minute. He got up and threw the cloth napkin in Brock’s face, then stormed out of the restaurant and their relationship. 

*** 

After Steve first started picking up regular modeling jobs in high school, he decided to take a gap year and give modeling his full attention. College would always be there, after all, and he wouldn’t always have the connections and physique to try modeling. One year became two, and after traveling the world and meeting some of the most renown people in the industry in person, Steve had cleared off his mom’s life-long debt and bought them a modest but comfortable two bedroom apartment in Greenwich. 

With enough insistence from his mom who didn’t want him to depend on his looks as a career, he grudgingly prioritized an education over photoshoots and runways. NYU wasn’t a cheap school, but once he got there, everything seemed to fall into place. His schedule was flexible enough and New York offered enough local work opportunities that he could model and study at the same time; he had time for his friends, time for his mom, and best of all, thanks to one fateful campus event, he’d found the man of his dreams. 

It had all been so perfect until the very end, but just because Brock couldn’t see past their differences didn’t mean Steve had to accept it. Sure, he didn’t have some fancy family tree or prized politicians in his family, but there was no rule that said he couldn’t be just as good as they were. 

If going to Harvard and Yale to study law was what Kennedys and Roosevelts and Vanderbilts did, then damnit, so would he. He had a 4.0 in anthropology from NYU, he had five years of work experience - including a fundraising event for UNICEF where he was invited to collaborate with David and Victoria Beckham! - and he had great relationships with his professors. They had been surprised by his sudden change in career goals, but all four of those he reached out to heartily agreed to support him with glowing recommendations. 

Now, here he was, powering through all of his assignments and homeworks for the month over one weekend. It wasn’t easy, but every minute he worked was a minute he didn’t wallow in his misery. When he slept, cloying, unrelenting nightmares of a life without love suffocated him. And if there was anything Steve could do, it was devoting himself to a task body, heart, and soul. Whether he was writing a research paper or tearing through a workout, Steve’s tunnel vision was a thing of legend. 

His plan was to work so hard he wouldn't have the time to miss Brock until he saw him again. At Harvard Law school, as an equal. Nobody could deny that he was a serious person then. 

The plan was going well until the second night when his mom stumbled home around 2am and found him in the same chair at the kitchen table as when she’d left to work much earlier the day prior. 

Sarah dumped her purse and her big winter coat over an empty kitchen chair and wrapped her arms around him. “Honey lamb, what’s gotten into you?” she murmured into his hair, holding him tight. “What are you doing?”

“My last assignment of the semester,” Steve said as casually as he could. “I still can’t sleep, ma. This is the only way I can stop thinking of him.”

“I understand you’re hurting, angel, but no man is worthy of taking your happiness from you,” she said quietly. 

“About that, ma, I need to tell you something,” he told her as the tension in her arms eased into a gentle, rocking hug. “It’s good news and bad news.”

Sarah sighed softly into his hair. “Alright, angel. Tell it in the order that makes most sense.” 

“I’m not going back to modeling after this season,” he said as calmly as he could. “I’m going to law school instead. Harvard Law.”

The silence hung between them for a long, long time. Sarah stared at him, baffled to a point of shock. 

“...Harvard?” Sarah breathed, stunned. “Honey, I—I don’t understand. Are you specifically going to Harvard, or are you applying to many law schools?”

“I’m only applying to Harvard Law school,” Steve explained patiently. “That’s where I want to go.”

“I understand you want to go there, Steve, but isn’t it a tough school to get into?”

Steve shrugged. “I have a perfect GPA.”

After another beat of silent reflection, Sarah seemed to make up her mind. She smiled and nodded in understanding. “What’s your plan?”

“The application is due in four months. I asked my professors for recommendation letters, and I ordered seven of the most recent LSAT review books. I’m finishing my class work early so I can focus on my admissions essay and the LSATs. I need a 175 or better.”

“It sounds like you have a lot of work ahead of you,” she said quietly in understanding. “You just let me know how I can help. Practice tests, food, you name it. If anybody can make this happen, honey, it’s you.”


	2. Boldly going where no blond has gone before

Contrary to what people might believe, Steve was aware of how people perceived him. He had a lifetime of experience in being judged. As a kid, he’d been smaller and weaker than his peers, and his closet of hand-me-downs from kind neighbors and Salvation Army sales finds made his and his mom’s circumstances obvious everywhere he went. As an adult, people measured his tailored, brand-name clothes and his expensive car against his youth and treated him as a spoiled child of wealth who had side-stepped effort and hard work by coasting along on a trust fund and his good looks. A dim blond who wouldn’t open the New Yorker except to look at the pretty pictures. A man whose greatest aspirations were to host charity events for underprivileged youth in the Hamptons and to snare a trophy wife who could pop out three handsome kids (and at least two sons). 

But long before his anthropology classes at NYU helped Steve understand the complicated history of social inequality, class, and ‘race’, his mom had sat him down and explained it in words he could understand as a child. Those who judge and react with hate are not inherently evil, they are simply afraid. Whether they understand it or not, their anger belies their fears and insecurities. The typical person was never after conflict or pain, even if that was how they responded to the world. 

From that early age, his mom had impressed on him that as different as people could be, wherever they came from - rich or poor, foreign or local - all people sought and cherished the same principles: love and respect. Steve didn’t have to change the world, but if he recognized people’s fear and insecurities through their anger and offered love and respect in kind, he might change the world for one person. 

So when the hoodie and t-shirt wearing students paused their tired shuffle across campus to openly eye him in his form-fitting, short-sleeved button-up and jeans literally made for his body, Steve only smiled back. If they only saw blond hair and big pecs when they looked at him, that was fine. Soon they would meet as individuals, and Steve only looked forward to showing them that he was more than their unintended preconceptions. 

After all, they weren’t the only ones with their biases. New York had felt just as much like home when he was a poor rugrat raised by a single mom in the projects as when he was a highly-sought, highly-paid model. By contrast, the narrow streets and colonial red-brick houses coded Cambridge as a conservative, preppy, and exclusive space made Steve feel like an outsider. But like his mom had always showed him, he made an effort to see the intimidating crowd for the individuals and people they were. As he strolled through campus on his way to his new home in Hastings Hall, he noticed them - the group of three students huddled together around a bench table in animated conversation; the co-eds playing frisbee tag on the green; the young woman pulling a roller case behind her while mouthing along to some fierce music in her headphones. 

They were all bright young individuals with exciting interests and great passions, and Steve couldn’t wait for Brock to introduce him to this wonderful new world. 

***

_WELCOME LAW STUDENTS CLASS OF 2019_

Steve moved his belongings into his one-bedroom suite on the fifth floor and dashed out to join everyone else at orientation. A big banner hung in the law school quad to direct them to the orientation tables where tired second-year students in red shirts manned the posts. He walked up to the main table, separate from the tables where clubs like the Harvard Law Journal and Environmental Law Association tried to enlist fresh cases to their cause. 

“Hi, good morning, I’m Steve Rogers. It’s my first day, I’m so excited to be here—”

A fuzzy-looking second year eyed him skeptically, then without so much as acknowledging Steve’s words, he shoved a big glossy packet at him. “Class schedule, map, book list.”

“Right, thank you,” Steve said as he recovered. The second year was too busy checking Steve’s name off on a list to acknowledge him further, so Steve cleared his throat and asked, “Has Brock Rumlow checked in yet?” 

“No,” the guy answered after checking his list. “Maybe try the Lido deck.” 

Steve closed his mouth before he asked where that was. “Thanks,” he said instead, “Where do I pick up the social events calendar?”

The guy gave him another tired look. “What?”

“You know,” Steve said with an encouraging smile, “mixers, formals, trips to the Cape? Ways to get to know each other.”

“There’s a pizza welcome lunch in twenty minutes,” the guy deadpanned sarcastically. “If you eat carbs.”

Steve ducked his head before anyone could see his smile falter; before the guy could congratulate himself for getting under Steve’s skin. He only needed a second to regroup and remind himself this was his first day at law school, and nobody was going to ruin that for him. 

“Thank you,” Steve answered the second year with a genuine smile and walked to where a group of his peers were settling in. 

There were only a handful of bench tables, so most of the incoming law students were gathered on blankets on the lawn in groups of four or five. Steve walked around looking for Brock until one of the students organizing the small event told them to find their seats. Where could Brock be? This was orientation for their whole class of thirty-six, it shouldn’t be that hard to spot him. 

Dejected and frustrated, Steve found a group of three and sat down to join them. With the help of another burned out second-year, Steve was introduced to four of his first-year peers, but again it was nothing like his experience at NYU. The introductions were brief and dull, and no-one seemed interested in conversations unless it provided an opportunity to one-up each other. 

Steve made it through the rest of the day listening to information sessions about campus programs, amenities, and clubs, until they were finally released to return to their dorms. He had two days before classes commenced, and as the door to his suite closed behind him, Steve reminded himself that two days was plenty of time for Brock to arrive and for Steve to find him. 

He went to the gym twice a day - once in the morning for himself and once in the evening since Brock worked out before bed - with no luck. He got his textbooks, notebooks, office supplies, and the most he found was one of the scarier first-years he remembered from orientation, Maria Hill, who held a Ph.D. from Berkeley in the History of Combat, and who’d worked on deworming orphans in Somalia for the last eighteen months. 

“Hi!” he tried, offering his hand to shake in greeting. “We met yesterday, I’m—”

She gave his hand a withering look and only answered in one word. 

“No.”

Like Steve, she didn’t seem to have a herd of friends, but maybe that was how she liked it. That’s what Steve told himself anyway as he shouldered past the hurt and moved on. 

He didn’t need to be popular; he didn’t even need lots of friends! If he could only find Brock and show him that he _was_ a serious person who could become a lawyer just like any old Vanderbilt or Kensington, then everything would fall into place. 

One foot in front of the other, one step at a time. All first-years had the same classes, and Steve was bound to find Brock then. Soon the worst part of this new life would be over, and these few unhappy interactions would be a sore memory long forgotten. 

*** 

For his first day of classes, Steve made an added effort to look presentable. His favorite pair of slim-fit Dior jeans with a blue-grey button-up rolled up to his elbows would have been a smart choice for any occasion, but first impressions were important. He dug through his closet until he found a brown wool Herringbone Tweed vest. It was a vintage piece that had been altered for him for one of his earlier photoshoots, and while at the time he’d worn it open over a pair of gunmetal grey speedos, it was one of the few vests that closed over his chest to define his slim waist and his broad shoulders without drawing unnecessary attention to his pecs. 

All the way out of his dorm Steve got looks, sarcastic whistles, and one adventurous spirit even shouted ‘call me!’ in his wake, but the minute he got out into the sunshine Steve could feel his whole day turning around. The birds were chirping, all around him students were busy getting wherever they needed to be, just like Steve. His first class with Stromwell didn’t start for fifteen more minutes, which meant Steve would be able to get to his lecture hall early and get a seat in the front row. From there, he would be able to turn around and see the whole first-year cohort’s faces and finally - _finally_ \- catch Brock’s eye.

“Steve?”

Steve’s heart soared right into his throat and threatened to choke him with happiness. It was too good to be true! He turned slowly on the steps to the HLH where they’d have their first lecture in introduction to the philosophy of law, just in case he was still dreaming. 

“Brock! You go here, too? I’d forgotten all about that,” Steve laughed in feigned surprise, doing all he could to play it cool. 

“...What are you talking about?” Brock said after a beat. “Steve, what are you doing here? You’re not here to see me, are you?”

“What? No,” Steve scoffed with a good-natured roll of his eyes. “I go here.”

Brock openly stared at him as if he was being obtuse on purpose. “You go where, Steve?”

“Here, Harvard Law School.”

“You,” Brock replied, dumbfounded. “You got into Harvard Law?”

Steve shrugged, confused by Brock’s apparent disbelief. “What, like it’s hard?”

Brock opened his mouth, but he couldn’t seem to formulate any words. Steve smiled back at him, then made a show of checking his watch. 

“Oh, class is about to start,” he said with a bright smile. His first law school lecture! “Meet me after on those benches? I have a lot to tell you.”

“Ye—sure,” Brock stammered, and without another word, Steve spun on his heel and walked on, full of confidence. 

Steve floated on air to the lecture hall. This was why he hadn’t run into Brock before, obviously - fate only let it happen now that Steve looked his absolute best, because fate wanted them to be together. 

Full of reinvigorated confidence he sauntered into the room and took a seat in the front row. All around him students unfold their laptops in silence (one smarmy soul had even brought _two_ ), as if they’d arrived at a funeral procession instead of an exceptional place of learning and growth. How hard had every one of these people worked to come in here and sit with their sombre faces and tired eyes? 

Steve shook the thought from his head and turned around to face the front. A tall, grand dame figure in her 50’s was staring back at him from the podium. He wasn’t sure what to do as Professor Stromwell’s gaze swept over him in clear judgment of him, his clothes, and finally, his notebook. 

Then, just as quickly as she’d weighed and judged him with a look, she turned her attention to address the class. 

“A legal education means you will learn to speak in a new language,” she began, “You will be taught to achieve insight into the world around you, and to sharply question what you know. The seats you inhabit will be yours for the next nine months of your life. Enjoy it. Those of you in the front row, beware.”

As if on cue, a seating chart was passed to Steve by the girl on his left, and he realized with a rising concern that he was signing to make his front-row seat a permanent commitment. Steve was still signing in as he felt the attention in the room shift towards him. He looked up, and once again Professor Stromwell was staring back at him. 

“Steve Rogers,” she said with the impatience of a person who’d been forced to repeat herself. “What did the dispute entail?”

“I, uh.”

Forget the fact that Steve had no idea what the dispute was, what it was called, or who was involved. He didn't know what she was talking about, let alone why he would have an answer in the first two minutes of the lecture. In his sudden spike of distress, Steve could only gawp up at her and try to fill in the blanks with his best possible guess.

“I, em. I wasn’t aware that we had an assignment.”

Professor Stromwell continued looking down her nose at him in silence until she held up the clipboard of seat assignments again and called on, “Sharon Carter.”

A prim and preppy blonde dressed in pearls and a sweater-set looked up at her name. 

“Do you think it’s acceptable that Mr. Rogers is unprepared?”

Steve’s eyes must have bugged out at the question. He missed one assignment, did that really warrant public shaming? He swallowed down his discomfort and turned to Sharon with a small (mortified) smile. 

Sharon sized him up in a second. “No, I do not.”

Professor Stromwell seemed pleased for the first time since the lecture began. 

“Would you support my decision to ask him to leave and return to class only when he is prepared?” 

“Absolutely.”

Steve stared between the two blue-blood women ganging up on him like the high-class bullies they were. He fought back tears of humiliation, desperate not to let them see how their words hurt him. He wanted to speak up, to say something in his own defense, but the way Professor Stromwell looked at him made it clear he had no room for argument. 

Left without a choice, Steve gathered up his notebook and satchel and strode out of the room with his head held high. Whatever anyone else thought of him, whatever they thought he was worth, he wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of seeing him broken by the pain of their rejection.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Listen, I like Rumlow (and Rumlow/Sharon) about as much as you do (maybe even less!). We'll be back on an even keel after ch. 3, I promise.


	3. Love can be quite a trial

If the vest wasn’t fitted to within an inch of his life, Steve would have folded into brace position, cradled his own head, and counted backwards from fifty. He had never felt so humiliated and unwelcome in his life. 

And Brock had been there; he was in that room, he would have seen everything. He would have seen Steve admit that he’d been unaware of the homework, he’d have heard that rotten woman support his ejection from the room. Most of those people were absolute strangers whom he’d barely see again, but Brock - Brock was the whole reason he was here; he was here to impress what a serious and worthwhile man he could be. 

But what worthwhile, serious person can read his course syllabi and miss the very first assignments listed on the page? Maybe it was true what they all thought about him when they looked at him - another dimwitted blond with a rack the size of Kansas and an ass to rest your drink on. Maybe he should drop this nonsense and go back to modeling while he still had the body people were willing to pay to dress up. 

“Hey,” he heard a gentle voice say. “Are you okay?”

Without knowing the voice, Steve jolted upright and wiped at his wet face with his shaking hands in the vain hope that she wouldn’t realize he’d been crying. 

“I—I’m, yeah; I’m okay,” he lied with a forced, wobbly smile. 

He practically heard the dry tone in the look she gave him. “Try again.”

Steve huffed a tired, rueful laugh. “Do they just put you on the spot? Is that normal?”

The redhead’s wry look softened into a smile of understanding. “The professors? Yeah, they do that. Socratic method.”

“And, if you don’t know the answer or understand the question, they just kick you out? That’s normal?”

“Stromwell does.”

Steve blinked back at her. He was so wrapped up in feeling sorry for himself he didn’t think that this might bring up hurtful memories of her own. As far as Steve was concerned, he wouldn’t want to be reminded of this morning’s pain two, three, or even fifteen years down the line. 

“Did she do that to you, too?” he asked, gentling his tone. 

“No, but she made me cry once in my first year,” the woman admitted. Steve took courage in the smile she mustered as she said it; he couldn’t imagine ever smiling about today, but this stranger seemed to have overcome the horror, so maybe it would feel less important to him, too. 

“Not in the class, but when I got back to my room I was a mess. She could make your blood run cold in your veins if she wanted to.”

“...oh,” was all Steve managed to say. 

“Don’t worry, it gets better,” the woman told him then, and Steve found himself believing her. “Who else do you have?”

“Hawley, Donovan, and Levinson.”

She nodded to herself as she processed his list. “Speak up in Hawley’s class, she likes people with an opinion. For Donovan, try to get a seat in the back. He tends to spit when he talks about products liability. And for Levinson, make sure you read the footnotes. That’s where a lot of her test questions come from.”

“Wow,” Steve breathed, still reeling from everything the woman had just told him. “Thank you, I’m so glad I met you.”

“Oh, and if you can get one of Stromwell’s quotes right, that’s almost as important as acing the midterm. But you didn’t hear it from me,” she whispered with a sly smile and a playful wink.

Steve laughed - genuinely laughed. It wasn’t even about the information she had shared, or feeling in on some campus secret, like he was suddenly one of the cool kids. 

He laughed because for the first time since he got to Harvard, Steve felt like he was seen. He was seen as a person and recognized as someone worth reaching out to. How could ever thank her—

“Hey.”

Steve spun around on the bench to see Brock walking up to them. “Brock, hi! I,” he stopped talking immediately and turned back to the redheaded woman visibly studying his fiancé without saying a word. “Thank you again, I really appreciate all you shared with me. I hope I see you again!”

“Good luck,” she said in a more subdued tone than earlier, and if Steve had the time, he’d stop and think over what she said more carefully. But Brock was there, and that took precedence. 

“So, I saw what happened. Are you alright?”

Steve tried to laugh it off for him. “Yeah, I’m fine, it’s fine. I’d be more worried if I was that horrible woman who made me look bad in front of the professor. But,” he said with a brighter smile and perkier tone. “You’re here now, that’s what matters. How was your summer?”

“Did you do anything exciting? You were with your family, right—”

Steve’s question died on his lips as a delicate hand snaked around Brock’s chest from behind. Brock turned and reached for the hand that caressed his broad, muscular chest with proprietary ease, and brought the owner of the hand around to his side to present her to Steve. 

“Uh, hey,” he tried to say as casually as possible. “Have you met Sharon?”

It was the witch from Stromwell’s class! Steve didn’t know whether he should be sick or livid, and as Sharon held out her hand to him, there was nothing but contempt in her eyes. 

“Hi,” she said, prim and polite. “Sharon Carter.”

Steve couldn’t even bring himself to acknowledge her. He looked at Brock, horrified. “You know her?”

“She’s—”

“I’m his fiancée.”

And as she tucked a lock of her hair behind her ear, Steve saw it. The six carat rock - Brock’s grandmother’s ring. The ring that belonged to Steve. 

“I’m sorry,” he said when he eventually came to again. “I just hallucinated. Who are you?”

“Steve, Sharon was my girlfriend at prep school,” Brock explained. “We got back together over the summer at my grandmother’s birthday party.”

His words felt like a slap in the face. And she might as well have spit in his wounds with her self-satisfied smile, smug and knowing as it was. 

“Brock told me all about you,” Sharon told him with a smirk that barely concealed her haughty disdain. “You and your pictures are famous at our club, but he didn’t tell me you’d be here. I guess your pictures aren’t the only things going around.”

Steve wanted to scream. He wanted to curse, to call her names, punch Brock in the mouth for letting anybody talk about him that way. 

“Excuse me,” he choked out instead and ran away.

*** 

Steve couldn’t remember how he got to the garage or any of the drive until he took the wrong turn on a one-way and realized what he was doing. With a quick touch on the break, a change in gear, and a turn of the wheel he swung his Porsche around in the right direction, barely aware of the chaos he left in his wake. 

He needed to regroup. All he needed was a few hours to himself where he could get his bearings again. 

That’s when he spotted it on the other side of the street - a strip mall salon called ‘Beauty Oasis.’ Again he spun his car around, swerving toward the salon until he pulled up to the curb and hopped out of his car. 

The shop was nothing like the regular boutique spots near campus - it was a low-key, blue-collar salon with two manicure stations and five hair chairs, an ideal place for old ladies and young waitresses to get prettied up for the week. It was exactly the kind of place his ma would take him when she needed a break from her day to day, and small, unassuming salons had quickly become his safe space away from home. 

“Can I help you?”

Steve had been too busy scanning the salon for an available manicurist that he hadn’t noticed the black man standing behind the reception desk. 

“I,” Steve choked out, struggling to form words as if he’d just sprinted instead of driven from campus. “Manicure, please.”

The man wrinkled his nose and waved him around, encouraging him to take a seat at the nearest empty manicure station. “I got you, take a seat.”

Steve did as he was told, but he couldn’t help but stare. He’d never met a male manicurist before. “You?”

“Paulette’s out for the month and Erin’s got a client coming in any minute,” the man explained as Steve sank into his seat and listened. He watched the man walking away for a moment before coming back with a dish of warm soapy water for Steve to dip his fingers into. 

“Besides, I own this place,” he said with a grin, as if that was the end-all, be-all argument. “And you’re gonna leave with the best damn nails you’ve ever had.”

The corners of Steve’s mouth started twitching up in a hesitant smile, and even though he was busy fussing with drawers and pulling out the sealed packets of sanitized clips and trimmers, the man immediately spotted the tell-tale signs of his smile. 

“Yeah, that’s better, you’ll be alright,” he said with a smile. “Looks like you’ve put a bad day behind you.”

Steve grunted under his breath in disgust. “You couldn’t even imagine.”

“Try me.”

And that’s what Steve did, letting it all out in one rushed confession. “I worked really hard to get into law school—I gave up a good job, turned down the best parties, even blew off Spring Break to study for the LSATs, all so I could get my boyfriend Brock back and now he’s engaged to this awful woman Sharon so it was all for nothing! I wish I’d never come to Harvard.”

The man’s smile pulled down into a frown the more Steve said. “Just like that? After you went through all that trouble?”

“What am I supposed to do? He’s engaged,” Steve reminded him as the man dried off his hands and started filing his nails into shape. “She’s got a family heirloom: she wears his grandmother’s six-carat diamond on her bony, unpolished finger.”

“I don’t know what to tell you,” the man admitted after a beat. “You’re talking to the wrong dude. I moved up here years ago with my woman who was starting business school, then she brings home a plastic surgeon. ‘I met someone,’ she said,” he said with a roll of his eyes. “‘Move out.’ And we’d just gotten here so I didn’t have a job at the time, so I had to.” 

Steve’s mouth fell open. “What’d you do! Did you know anyone?”

“No-one but her,” the man said with a small shake of his head. “I cried a lot, gained twenty pounds. She even took the dog, man. So I got a loan and picked up this place, with an apartment upstairs to call my own. It’s been alright since, just… lonely, you know? I miss that dog. A week before his third birthday, too.”

“That’s terrible!”

“Happens every day,” the man muttered with a defeated sigh, but then seemed to regroup and give Steve a look of wry amusement. “So, what’s so special about this Sharon? Is your man not out of the closet or something?”

“Honestly, I think it’s hit and miss. His parents know but I doubt he’s told his grandmother; he introduced me to her as his ‘friend’ last summer. And she really liked me,” Steve felt compelled to say. “Sharon’s from Connecticut. She belongs to his country club, and I’m sure someone in her family got here on the Mayflower.”

“She hot?”

Steve’s righteous anger deflated. He wanted so badly to call her ugly, unfortunate looking, or any of the hurtful words people used to cut others down when they were feeling insecure. 

“She’s really pretty,” he said instead, miserable in his honesty. It hurt to hear the words said out loud and know they were true. “She could use better make up, like better contouring and if she isn’t using YSL mascara she needs to, but she’s naturally very beautiful.”

The man’s expression twisted in disappointment. “And you’re sure this Brock guy is ‘the one’?”

“Without a doubt,” Steve answered immediately. “I love him more than I’ve ever loved anyone.”

His new friend looked up at him with an expression that clearly had no patience for bullshit. “Listen, if a guy like you can’t save your relationship, there ain’t hope for us mere mortals. And if you’re sure this isn’t some homophobic shit,” he clarified emphatically, “what are you waiting for? Steal that bitch back.”

*** 

Stealing Brock back was easier said than done. On more than one occasion, he’d knocked on Brock’s door with a bottle of champagne and two glasses, but Brock was never home. He made a point to start working out in the evening when he knew Brock was there, and while heads often turned when he turned up (especially for back and shoulders day), Brock never did more than steal glances of him from a distance. 

When by luck one day they were both at the heated indoor pool at the same time, Steve made a point to emerge on the same side where Brock and Sharon were toweling off. He lifted himself out of the water with an effortless grace belied by the swelling muscles of his biceps and shoulders. Hot water coursed down over his body, and the sudden contrast to the cool swimming hall air left him perkier even from a distance. 

Brock scrambled to wrapped his bath towel around his waist as Steve walked by, but neither Sharon nor Steve had to wonder why. 

Still, Brock didn’t say or act on any of the treats Steve laid out for him, and eventually Steve realized that his old tried-and-true strategies wouldn’t cut it anymore. 

*** 

The Harvard Law Library housed some of the finest books in the country. The dignified, expansive building curated every recorded legal case, and - perhaps more importantly - provided tables, study rooms, and nooks for students to pursue their studies in great comfort. 

Steve had heard through the grapevine that Brock and his study group would be getting together for the first time on Tuesday evening, so he packed up his books and grabbed his big basket of bribes to join them. 

The table of six had four people around it: Brock and Sharon, whom Steve recognized, and two other students Steve didn’t know that well, Phil and Jasper. 

“Hey!” Steve greeted them as he walked up to their table with a large basket of assorted muffins held in front of him in offering. “I’m here to join your study group. And, I brought sustenance! No nuts, but only four are gluten free, I hope that’s alright—and this dark one has no processed sugar, they made it with dates—”

“ _Steve_ ,” Brock cut in to interrupt Steve’s muffin introduction impatiently. “What are you doing here?”

“I thought I just said,” Steve said, still valiantly trying to channel cheerful friendliness despite the irritated and unwelcoming looks he was getting. 

Sharon didn’t even acknowledge the basket or the muffins. “Our group is full.”

“Oh,” Steve quietly said after a beat. “Was it an RSVP thing?”

“No, it’s like, totally, a smart people thing,” Jasper said in a mocking imitation of a valley girl. A blonde valley girl. “And like Sharon said: we’re full.”

In the far corner, to Brock’s right, Phil looked red around the ears. Steve couldn’t tell if he was embarrassed, irritated, angry, or sunburned, but he didn’t look that happy. 

“One more wouldn’t be that difficult—”

Sharon stared Phil down before he could finish his thought. “We assigned the outlines last week,” she said primly, then turned to Steve with a smug smile. “The answer is no.”

“Sorry, Steve,” Brock said quietly, and Steve left him his preferred double chocolate muffin on the table for him before he gathered his basket, mumbled a goodbye to the group, and left, completely deflated. 

Brock hadn’t said a word in his defense, not a single word. Steve couldn’t believe it; the guy who’d been there for him through thick and thin for years, driving through hours of traffic in the rain just to get Steve his favorite soup when he was sick or staying up with Steve through the night when Steve felt too anxious about an upcoming shoot. What was it about this place that had turned him into such an unreliable asshole? 

Steve sat down on a bench outside the library and tried to get his thoughts together. He had tried so hard and come so far, and still he was miserable and alone. He missed his mom, he wanted to talk to her so badly, but Wednesdays were her early shifts and she’d already be asleep. If he woke her up with a phone call, she’d think it was an emergency no matter what he said. 

And it wasn’t an emergency, was it? Steve looked at the beautifully decorated wicker basket next to him with its assortment of 24 enormous muffins. He was at Harvard Law School, in the finest clothes, all because his mother loved and believed in him, and his professors had been there when he needed them. 

How he’d lost sight of reality, he wasn’t sure, but any way you looked at it, Steve was anything but alone. If anything was worth the work, it was love, but he’d be a fool to think his life wasn’t full of love without Brock in it. 

Not everyone was that lucky. 

A quick search on his phone provided more good and bad news than he’d imagined, but he picked up his muffins, plugged in the address, and started on his way. Five quick minutes later, Steve stood in Harvard Square in front of the Harvard Square Homeless Shelter. Even though the volunteers couldn’t give the food to those staying with them overnight, they themselves were allowed to have the muffins, and Steve’s night was made infinitely better by seeing the surprise light up in their smiles. 

He left with a volunteering brochure and a lighter heart. A basket of muffins wouldn’t change the world; it might not even change the night. But already Steve could feel his priorities shifting with his cleared up perspective on the world around him. This whole mission to get Brock back was getting out of hand, and Steve needed to get him away from the toxic people always surrounding him so they could talk alone. 

From experience, Steve knew getting Brock alone would be easier said than done. Sharon was always hovering, and if she wasn’t, their other serpentine friends were. He already knew he wasn’t getting any productive work done if he went home, so Steve continued wandering around campus trying to think through how he might get Brock alone for just a few minutes. 

By the time he was back to his room and climbing the stairs to his fifth floor suite, it was late enough that people were flitting through the hallway, chattering and saying their goodbyes before bed. 

“It’s not just _any_ party,” he heard some women giggling. “It’s going to _the_ party of the—”

“No way!” he said with a big grin as he got to the top of the stairs. “Someone at this school is actually having a, a, uh,” his words trailed off uncomfortably as the women turned around and he recognized Sharon. “Oh.”

“We are,” Sharon told him coolly, and her two friends turned to look at him with equally sour expressions. “But it’s a costume party, you probably wouldn’t want to come.”

Steve blinked in surprise; he couldn’t believe she’d acknowledged they even had a party! “What? I love costume parties!”

Sharon’s lips curled up in a small smile. “Oh, then, I guess we’ll see you there.”

“Sure, yeah—can I bring anything?”

“No, you’re good. Nine o’clock on Friday,” she told him before turning to go, only to remember one more detail. “45 Dunston Street.”

“Thanks, Sharon. I’ll be there.”

*** 

Two years ago, Versace designed a perfume advertisement campaign around the blistering heat of summer and the glorious history of the Roman Empire. Beautiful women in modern silk togas and woven sandals walking through the ancient cobblestone streets of Rome watched with bated breath as the victorious gladiators emerged from the arena, fashionably disheveled in sweat and dust from the fight. 

Since their costumes were created with each model’s dimension in mind, the costume department had let them keep their armor and clothing. At the time, Steve easily understood why the women were happy - their togas were beautiful and made with modern fashion in mind; they’d be able to use those unique, handmade dresses as often as they pleased. He hadn’t understood why the men had grinned and clapped themselves on the back, though. Their costumes would look insane in the regular public, and Steve hadn’t understood why they were happy about something clunky and impractical that only served to collect dust between Halloween parties. 

(It wasn’t until later that night that two of the men he’d gotten close to on the week-long shoot invited him over to their place and showed him exactly how bold, hand-crafted leather armor could be enjoyed.) 

(He never told his ma, and he also never travelled without it.)

Late September in Harvard edged into cooler temperatures that encouraged most students to wear a jacket whenever they left the house. Steve had considered it, but even his favorite leather jacket would look awkward over armor, so he threw caution to the wind and walked the three blocks to the off-campus party in nothing but his gladiator sandals, leather pteruges, and scaled armor strapped across his chest that covered his right shoulder and arm. The strap across his chest and back was designed to framed his bare chest beneath his collarbone so the tension emphasized the breadth and proportions of his pecs to perfection. 

Heads turned in his wake and people who noticed him coming stopped to stare as Steve passed. The armor never failed to impress, and the satisfaction kept Steve smiling and relatively warm the whole way to the party. 

Until he walked up the stairs to the open door of 45 Dunston Street and realized he’d been had. 

No-one else was wearing a costume of any kind. Judging by their dull, neutral sweaters and glasses, they barely looked like they were at a party at all - for all Steve knew, this was a group of fifty some-odd law students who’d accidentally ended up in the same house after class. Those closest to the door who could see him stopped what they were doing to stare, but these weren’t the appreciative or awed looks Steve had enjoyed on his walk to the party. They looked at him like he was out of his mind or grown another head. 

They looked at him like he was a stranger off the streets who’d invited himself to a space intended for those special few who knew better. 

Steve swallowed down the shame and hurt before they got the better of him. With his chin level and his shoulders squared, he strode into the party like he owned the place, meeting the eyes of the few who felt entitled enough to look down their noses at him. All he’d intended to do at this party was catch Brock alone so that they could talk. That was all he’d planned to do, and not even these conniving elitists were going to get in his way. 

Except, Brock wasn’t the one he found first. Across the room he spotted Sharon with a few of her friends, all of them modestly dressed in cashmere and pearls. 

Steve didn’t break his stride as he walked up to them with a smile that was all teeth. “Thanks for inviting me, girls,” he said cheerfully over their gasps and nervous giggling. “This party is super fun!”

Sharon’s mouth dropped open at first sight of his costume. 

“I’m so bummed I didn’t get the memo about dressing up like tired hags,” he said with an intentional shrug to show off the definition of his shoulders and chest, “but maybe that was just a theme for you and your most delightful friends.”

If Sharon or her friends thought of a comeback, Steve didn’t catch it. He turned on his heel - swinging just enough for the pteruges to lift without unintended flashing - and made his way through the crowd in search of his man. 

Soon enough, Steve found Brock in the kitchen by the drinks, talking to Maria Hill. Steve didn’t even have to speak for Brock to notice him and forget about whatever Hill was saying. 

“Damn, Steve. You’re a walking felony.”

“Thanks,” Steve smirked, pleased to see the appreciative interest flashing in Brock’s eyes. “You don’t look so bad yourself. Having a good time?”

“Now I am,” Brock admitted, leaning back against the counter so he could look his fill of Steve in his couture leather armor and beckoning him closer. Steve eagerly followed his lead, standing between Brock’s knees until they were so close they could speak in whispers. 

“It’s so good to talk to you,” Steve admitted softly, gazing at him through his lashes and watching the interest in Brock’s eyes turn into lustful hunger. “We’ve barely spent any time together since we got here.”

“Babe, you know that’s not personal. I spend all my time with case studies and hypos, there’s no time for fun.”

Steve huffed a silent laugh at their shared pain. “Tell me about it. I can’t imagine doing all of this and Hawley’s internship next year.”

Brock gazed up at him with a grin, pitying in his amusement. “Steve, what are you talking about? Why would you want to do that?”

Steve wasn’t sure he heard right. He frowned to himself and found himself asking, “What do you mean?”

“You had a great career going, babe. What are you doing here? You think you’re smart enough to get Hawley’s internship?” Brock pointed out softly, as if to emphasize how he was only saying it to protect Steve from future disappointment. “You’re setting yourself up for failure, Steve. There’s no way you’ll get the grades to stay here, let alone qualify for competitive internships. I don’t mean—”

“Stop talking.” 

Brock’s mouth clicked shut, but that didn’t soothe the sudden anger burning in Steve’s chest. 

“Am I on glue here, or did I not get into the same law school you did, Brock?” Steve bit out, one raging word after the other. “We took the same LSAT, we’re taking the same classes—”

“Steve, you’ve got it all wrong,” Brock interrupted him to say. “I just don’t want to see you get your hopes up. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

And with those words, all the little signs and minor realizations came together. Steve stared at him, and while Brock's face was as familiar as his own, it finally hit him how much he’d been blind to all these years. 

“I’ll never be good enough for you, will I?”

“What kind of a question—Steve!” Brock called after him, but Steve never stopped to listen to him again.

*** 

No-one was going to take from Steve what he had worked so hard to achieve - not Brock, not Sharon, and certainly not those unscrupulous assholes who didn’t care if he heard them negotiating bets on how long Steve would last at Harvard with and without spreading his legs. He’d show them; he’d show all of them. 

His mind made, Steve marched the whole way to the campus store. This time the appreciative glances and amazed stares did nothing for him - he barely even noticed anyone looking at him as he pushed his cart down the aisles, filling it with notecards, a tablet, and a laptop computer. 

“You’ll want an extra cord.”

Angry and already on the defensive, Steve turned with a frown to see who had spoken to him. Somehow, on a night as miserable as this, the only friendly face on campus was looking back at him.

“You gave me advice about the professors,” he said in recognition, his lips picking up in a hesitant smile. He reached out to accept the box she held up for him. “It doesn’t come with a cord?”

“It does, but only having one is a rookie mistake. You’ll want to plug it in easily when you’re home, but also take it to campus and the library without a hassle.”

She didn’t say a word about his outfit, or ask him how he was; she simply offered help. Steve found himself genuinely smiling again as he thanked her and placed the box in his cart. 

She returned his smile and wished him luck before leaving Steve to his business. Steve looked into his cart and took a steadying breath. 

He could do this. 

*** 

From that night, Steve quickly found his way. He returned to his preferred early morning workouts that gave him hours to eat and prepare for lecture every day. He spent his evenings at the library, reading up on week’s court cases and typing up his assignments - except for Tuesdays when he'd make his way out to Sam’s salon to hang out and catch up. Sam and the ladies working at his salon quickly became Steve’s best friends at Cambridge. It started when Steve sat down for a few hours after closing to show Paulette some of the tips and tricks he’d picked up on set over the years, and trusting Erin to cut his hair. 

As midterms approached, hanging out turned into weekly quizzing, where Steve and Erin - who was studying for her Associate’s in accounting - answered quick-fire questions that Paulette and Sam read off cards (and sometimes made up, just to throw them off). 

It wasn’t long before law felt less like a foreign language and more like a puzzle with its four corners stitched together. All Steve had to do was take his time and fill in the middle, one jigsaw piece at a time. 

*** 

They were covering the State v. Latimer in Hawley’s class, the last case before the dreaded midterm. 

“According to Swinney v. Neubert, Swinney, who was also a private sperm donor, was allowed visitation rights as long as he came to terms with the hours set by the parents. So if we’re sticking to past precedent, Mr. Latimer wasn’t stalking, he was clearly within his rights to ask for visitation.”

Hawley considered Brock’s argument and turned it back on him. “Swinney was a one-time sperm donor, and in our case, the defendant was a habitual sperm donor, who also happens to be harassing the parents in his quest for visitation.”

“But without this man’s sperm the child in question wouldn’t exist,” Brock replied, doubling down on his earlier argument. “Why should his contribution be less important than Swinney’s?”

His answer seemed to satisfy Hawley, who grinned and nodded in tune to the murmured agreements voiced by the rest of the class. 

“Now you’re thinking like a lawyer.”

Steve knew he could have kept his mouth shut, but something was bugging him about the earlier statement Hawley made. There had to be a difference between the rights given to a one-time donor versus a man who clearly used the practice as a source of pocket money. He raised his hand just as one of the lecture doors opened and his redheaded friend stepped in to wait in the sidelines. 

“Mr. Rogers?”

He’d been so distracted by his friend’s unexpected appearance that he’d almost forgotten he was raising his hand. The class tittered with gossip as Steve faltered, but he did his best to shake it off and make his point. 

“Although Mr. Rumlow makes an excellent point,” he started a little hesitantly, “I have to wonder if the defendant can be compared to Swinney at all. Swinney made one donation and kept track of it, so I have to wonder: did the defendant keep a similarly thorough record of each sperm emission made throughout his life?”

Hawley raised an eyebrow and looked at him carefully. “Why do you ask?”

“Unless the defendant attempted to contact every single one night stand and sperm donation in order to determine if a child resulted from those unions, I don’t see how he has parental claim over this child. Why this sperm? Why now? And for that matter, if any sperm emission is cause for parental rights, all acts of masturbation where his sperm was not seeking an egg could be termed reckless abandonment.”

From across the room, he saw as the redheaded woman’s lips twitched up in a sly smirk. Not so far from her, Hawley began smiling at him as well. 

“Mr. Rogers, I believe you have just won your case,” she said with a pleased tone. “Class dismissed.”

The students wasted no time filing out of the lecture room, and Steve packed up quickly to go see his friend. He’d already kicked himself multiple times for not asking her name or for her number, because he was pretty sure if anyone would be a great addition to the Tuesday night hang outs at the Beauty Oasis, it would be her. 

But as he passed Professor Hawley as he made his way to the young redhead, the professor held out a hand to stop him. 

“You did well today, Mr. Rogers.”

Steve stopped in his tracks and turned with a hesitant (hopeful) smile. “Thank you, Professor.”

“You’re applying for my internship next year, aren’t you?”

“I, uh,” Steve stammered, suddenly caught with one foot in his old insecurities again. “I don’t know—”

“You should. Do you have a resume?”

“Oh! I do,” he said and reached into his satchel where he pulled his resume out of a ready folder. “Here you go.”

The paper was of fine, weighted stock, and had a subtle scent of Bergamot. 

“It’s engraved,” Hawley observed, a little taken aback. 

“I think that gives it a little something extra,” Steve said with a bright smile. “Thank you, Professor, see you Thursday!”

His friend was nowhere to be seen when he turned around to find her, and it wasn’t until he was out in the hallway that he turned around and caught her handing Professor Hawley a file and accepting Steve’s resume in return for a curious sniff. 

At least now he knew she worked with Professor Hawley; he’d find her another time. 

*** 

Everything was going fine until one unassuming Friday morning in October when the winter was starting to make itself known. Steve walked out of lecture and right into a throng of buzzing classmates crowding in the hallway. 

He glanced over at Phil, the closest familiar face in the group, and asked, “What’s going on?”

“Hawley’s firm is representing a major divorce case worth millions and her caseload is so heavy she’s taking on first-year interns.”

“What? He chose them already?”

From the front of the group, Steve heard Sharon gasp in happy surprise and cry with excitement - clearly, she and Brock had both gotten a spot. 

Steve couldn’t see the list from his place at the back of the crowd, but some sour anonymous soul who was leaving disappointed frowned at him as they passed and said, “Competition must’ve been easy this year.”

It wasn’t until Steve finally pushed his way to the front that he understood.

Brock Rumlow  
Sharon Carter  
Maria Hill  
Steve Rogers

Steve couldn’t believe his eyes. _He got in!_ Somewhere in the back of his mind he could picture his ma laughing ‘Why not you?’ as she always did, and it filled him with such happiness to know he’d soon be calling her to share the good news.

But someone else was going to hear the news first. 

Smirking, he made his way out of the crowd and easily found Brock and Sharon still celebrating their win. 

“Brock,” he said excitedly, and the two haughty lovebirds stopped what they were doing and looked at him. “Remember the time after Winter Formal? When we spent four incredible hours in the hot tub?”

Brock blushed a deep shade of red at the memory and looked like he was about to choke in his effort to bite his tongue. Sharon cut a betrayed look at her fiancé. 

“ _Four hours?_ ”

Steve’s knowing smirk stretched into a broad, beaming smile. “This is **so** much better than that!”

He had so much to do! He needed clothes appropriate for a law firm, shoes—a briefcase! But most of all, he needed to call his ma and share the good news. They talked the whole drive out to the Beauty Oasis, where he talked Sam into leaving the shop for a few hours in Erin and Paulette’s capable hands to join him for his first serious law student shopping excursion. 

*** 

The next Monday Steve was over forty minutes early to Platt, Hawley & Associates. He parked his car in the farthest corner of the parking lot and did his best to control his breathing on his relatively long walk to the lobby. Hawley’s office door was still closed, and Steve was too jittery to sit still in the lobby. 

It was just a divorce case, Steve tried to tell himself. Yes it was a big deal to him because it was his first real case, and yes he’d still do his best to represent their client, Mrs. Hansen, but at least it wasn’t a murder case or something where someone could go to prison if they (he) made a mistake. Alimony and child support could be renegotiated in the future if necessary, which was so much better than trying to free an innocent soul who ended up in prison because of bad representation. 

Still, he couldn’t seem to shake the nerves and there was nowhere he could do anything about it. If he paced outside, he’d get hot and start sweating in his clothes, which was the last thing he wanted. If he paced inside the building, either in the lobby or in the hallway, he’d look crazy and possibly give someone the impression that he was too unnerved to be trusted as an intern. But given the scant number of people in at seven-twenty in the morning, Steve figured there was one place where he’d be safe to walk off his nerves. 

He opened the door to the men’s restroom in the lobby and let himself in. It still smelled like lemons from the morning’s first cleaning, and it was surprisingly nicely decorated with a firm leather couch, rolled hand towels instead of paper towels, and an assortment of colognes, sunscreens, and mouthwashes to choose from for anyone who presumably didn’t carry their own. 

But Steve wasn’t the only one there. 

A man not much older than himself was sitting on the nice leather couch, clutching a packet of Hostess Sno Balls in one hand while he had a pink, half-eaten treat in the other. There was nothing sinister about it, or even that unusual, but Steve got the distinct feeling that he’d walked in on something rather private instead of simply interrupting a stranger’s morning sugar spike. 

“Sorry,” Steve started to say and back out, but the man seemed to come to life and waved him in.

“It’s—no, don’t let me—”

“No, it’s alright,” Steve tried to explain; between the two of them, the Sno Ball eater looked like he was going through ‘worse.’ “I’m fine, I just needed to walk some nerves off, I’ll go outside.”

A quiet sound escaped the other man, and Steve stopped in his tracks to make sure he wasn’t crying. He stepped back into the bathroom and let the door shut behind him before realizing the man was trying to hold back laughter. 

“That’s what I was doing, too,” he explained once he had his nervous laughter under control. “I, uh,” he held up the Hostess box in a helpless gesture. “I eat when I’m nervous. Here, have one; save me from myself.”

Steve looked at the offered Hostess box and at the handsome man offering it to him. He knew better than to say no. 

He took a seat on the other end of the couch and accepted the second of two Sno Balls out of the box. It was still wrapped in its plastic wrapper, and Steve tried to resist the smile of breaking it free. When had he last eaten something so unhealthy and delicious? 

“Rough day?” he asked before taking his first bite. 

“Rough case,” the man said with a rueful smile. “You ever deal with someone who doesn’t want to be helped? My client’s building a better case against himself than the opposing counsel.”

So he was clearly mistaking Steve for another lawyer working with the firm. On one hand, Steve felt really good about his new wardrobe, and on the other hand… he didn’t want to disillusion the man. 

“That does sound rough,” he seconded sympathetically after his first bite. “Does he have a reason for doing it?”

“He thinks it’ll spare his kids a lot of pain if he makes the whole thing go away.”

Steve considered the man’s dilemma as he enjoyed the rest of his Sno Ball. He’d never been a father, but he could understand the impulse to protect them at all cost. He couldn’t imagine his ma stopping at anything to make him happier and safer, even as an adult. 

“That’s why he’s got you, isn’t it?” he eventually said. “You can’t blame a parent for getting tunnel vision around their children. I think you just have to be patient and remember that part of your job is to have an eye on the big picture. He’s not the lawyer; you’re the one who can see several steps ahead and see how it will play out. Remind yourself of that, give him space, and you’ll get where you need to be.”

The tension around the man’s eyes eased as he started to smile. “Thank you,” he started to say when his phone suddenly buzzed to life in his suit pocket. He excused himself quickly to check what it was, and frowned to himself. 

“Alright, showtime,” he said, half to himself, half to Steve. “Gotta go. Thanks for the pep talk.”

“Sure,” Steve said, resisting the childish instinct to wave goodbye as he watched him go. Once the door closed behind him, Steve glanced at his own watch. Hawley’s meeting would start in twenty minutes, surely she’d be in her office by now. 

He let a few minutes pass before throwing out the Hostess box and letting himself out back into the lobby. There was a small bustle of people in the previously empty building, and Steve felt less out of place as he made his way to Hawley’s office. 

Where she was talking to the man from the bathroom. 

“Mr. Rogers,” she said when she noticed him, gesturing for him to join them. “Stark, let me introduce one of my top students and an intern on the case, Steve Rogers.”

As Stark turned to see Steve approaching, a glimmer of horrified realization flickered across his face before he could school his expression into an easy, confident smile. 

“Mr. Rogers, this is Anthony Stark. He will be representing Mrs. Hansen’s husband in the case.”


	4. Would I lie to you?

Steve, Maria, Brock, and Sharon were all asked to wait outside Hawley’s office while she and Stark had an initial discussion among themselves over where their clients stood on the case. They were given copies about the client and the case at hand so they’d be familiar with the details when Hawley was ready for them. 

“This should be easy,” Sharon was the first to say. “Per the prenuptial agreement she is entitled to the majority of all assets in the event that he cheats or returns to alcoholism. He’s done both.”

“If we can prove it,” Maria pointed out. “No drug test, and he denies cheating. And she wants full custody.”

“Who could blame her?” Steve said quietly, not really comfortable enough chatting with the people next to him. But Maria looked at him with a questioning arch in her brow, so he elaborated. “A childhood friend of mine had an alcoholic dad. It was a living nightmare.”

Maria’s expression soured with a sympathetic frown, but she said nothing. Somehow, by some bitter twist of irony, that was the nicest thing she’d said to him.

The door opened and Stark strode out of the office without so much as looking at the interns (or Steve). Perfectly professional and poised, but Steve had hoped for a smile or look of recognition - anything to make him feel like he hadn’t made a fool of himself earlier that morning. 

Professor Hawley stepped out shortly after him and gestured for them to follow her as she led them down office hallways to a conference room. 

“We will be meeting Mrs. Hansen in thirty minutes,” she told them as they took a seat around the oblong conference table. “What questions have you thought to raise?”

“What evidence she has for claiming he cheated and that he was not sober while they were apart,” Maria said first. 

“Why she is contesting joint custody of the children,” Steve added, remembering his earlier conversation with Tony Stark. A father who would rather lose his fortune than expose his children to a problematic divorce didn’t sound like someone who deserved to be without his children. 

Unless Stark had convinced himself there was a benevolent twist to the argument. Maybe the father really was an uncaring man who had no interest in his children, and would rather be rid of them instead of suffering a long divorce himself. 

“Do we know the identity of the person or people with whom he cheated?” Sharon asked the professor, which was the first time Professor Hawley seemed to acknowledge one of them. 

“We are aware of two women, both of them high-end prostitutes. One of them has agreed to testify.”

Steve’s mouth twisted around the impulse to correct the use of ‘prostitute,’ but tried for a more subtle way to address it. “His accountants would be aware if he regularly employs high-end sex workers. Do we have access to his financial history?”

“We will by the end of the day.”

“He has a multinational company worth billions, he’ll be able to hide the paper trail if he wants to,” Sharon chimed in. Steve wasn’t sure if she was bringing up a counterpoint to mess with him, or if she simply had better insight from her own background as a wealthy, upper-class woman. 

The conference room door opened and revealed the mysterious redhead Steve already considered a friend. She acknowledged Hawley with a nod as she took her seat. 

“This is Natasha Romanov, another associate with the firm,” Hawley said in introduction. “Top three in her class and former editor of Harvard Law Review. You’ve probably seen her lurking around campus doing my research. She will be taking the lead on this case.”

As the rest of them got settled and started typing up notes ahead of the meeting, Steve looked up and caught Natasha looking his way. Her lips curved up in a pleased smile as if to say she was glad to see him there. 

Steve smiled back brightly, feeling himself sit up taller in his seat. While it seemed the other first-years were less hostile in this environment, he was deeply grateful to have a friend on the team. 

And while he didn’t really know her yet, something told him that a friend like Natasha wouldn’t let him fail in this intimidating new world. She would have his back. In return, he’d do his damn best to have hers.

*** 

Maya Hansen was a tall, beautiful woman with flawless skin and downcast eyes. On the outside she seemed to have everything going for her: a figure most would kill for and clothes so expensive even Steve, with his years of exposure to the designs of the rich and famous, had to take a second look. 

But once he recovered from his surprise, it was the look of heartbreak in her eyes that really stayed with him. Steve couldn’t tell if it was a sadness over love lost, or if she was afraid for her children, but either way it was enough to make Steve a little nauseous. 

Professor Hawley welcomed her and introduced them, explaining that Natasha would be the lead counsel for the scheduled hearing and that the interns were there to help get through the case as quickly as possible. As she shared the details of her earlier conversation with Stark, it became clear that settling was not on the table; Stark hadn’t budged on the offer of five million dollars, but Hawley was convinced Mrs. Hansen’s case was too good for that. 

Before long she turned the conversation over to Natasha and the interns so they could ask their questions and become more familiar with the case. 

“We’ve been together ten years,” she said, starting the story from the very beginning. “He’d only started his company then. We married the next year, after he’d made his first ten million. Money was the most important thing to him, then; he didn’t have it easy growing up, and sometimes, when he’d had enough to drink, he’d tell me he was afraid I’d leave if he had no money… it didn’t matter how many times I reminded him I’d met him before the money, how it didn’t matter. When I got pregnant with Nora he finally started to think about his drinking as a problem. He didn’t want to become like his father. And when he’s there, he is such a good father,” she added with a bittersweet smile. 

“I met him at a dinner event. I was a model and a student, he was this incredible businessman. I was about to start graduate school; I turned down a full ride to MIT because he worked out of LA, and he didn’t want to be on the East Coast,” she said with a sigh. “Too rainy, he said. And I’d say it was all worth it, until about five months ago when he started to behave differently, unpredictably. That was when I found the bottles.”

“Twelve years sober, I thought we were fine. But I found them in his office, in his car. In his closet. Everywhere he could he hid these small bottles of hard liquor. And then the spontaneous work trips started two months ago, late August. Our children don’t know when they’ll see their dad, and how he’ll react to them when he does come home. Every night he doesn’t come home, the look on their faces… they break my heart. But that’s not as bad as the nights he comes home drunk… No child should fear their own parent. I can’t let him keep doing this to them; they deserve a good father.”

“And they will have that chance, Mrs. Hansen,” Natasha promised her in a gentle tone as Mrs. Hansen fought back tears. She offered their client tissues and gave her a moment’s peace before continuing. “We will do our best to make this as painless as possible, and soon you and your children will have every opportunity to begin a better life together.”

Mrs. Hansen told them how she’d only guessed about the cheating, but it wasn’t until one of the women he’d hired grew a conscience and called her that she knew for certain. The sex worker had seen a family photograph in the husband’s office, and told Hansen later that their daughters reminded her of a childhood photo of herself and her baby sister. That memory had inspired her to come clean with Mrs. Hansen the next day. 

She answered their questions, offering as many details as she could remember. She was polite, she was soft spoken, and by the time their two hour meeting was up, Steve wanted nothing more than to win this case for her. He was dying to get out of that office and call his own ma and thank her for everything she had done as a single mother to give him every chance she could, so when Natasha dismissed the team and told them when to be in court on Friday, Steve was packed up and out of the office like a shot. 

*** 

Just because he had an internship didn’t mean Steve was out of the woods with his other three classes. So while he had a hunch that the key to the case was hidden in Mrs. Hansen’s business and family assets, he didn’t have the time a full-time lawyer on the case might have to comb their records for insights. What he had were the eight hours a week otherwise devoted to Hawley’s class, plus what time he could shave off his paltry social life. 

He was typing up an assignment for Levinson’s class when a knock on his door caught his attention. 

“It’s open,” he called from his desk, finishing his sentence before turning to see who it was. 

“Hey, Rogers,” Maria said, politely standing no farther inside Steve’s room than she’d been invited. “You done with the depos?”

“Yeah, I’ll get them. Hopefully you’ll find more than I did,” Steve said with a wry smile. He’d put it all aside to get his coursework done, so he left her in the small sitting area while he got the case files out of the bag he’d taken to the library earlier. 

When he came back and handed Maria the files, Maria didn’t say anything or make a move to leave. Steve wasn’t sure what to do. Maria never struck him as an awkward or insecure person; as far as he knew, the only emotions she expressed were disappointment in the capitalist patriarchy and an unshakable resolve. 

“You know,” she started awkwardly, then stopped herself abruptly. Steve watched as she reconsidered and tried again. “I’ll fall asleep if I work in my room, so I’m heading to the library. Want to join?”

Steve blinked at her, dumbfounded. Apart from Sharon’s mean spirited invitation, this was the first time he’d been invited to join someone in the program. So while he’d recently come home from hours at the library and he was enjoying a productive streak at his own desk, Steve told her he’d only need a minute to be ready. 

He packed up his laptop and notes then huddled into his leather jacket before joining Maria out of Hastings Hall. They walked in that stilted awkward silence of people who _wanted_ to talk but had nothing in common to talk about. 

“Is it true you modelled?” she eventually asked. Steve couldn’t help but smile at the curiosity in her tone; clearly, she’d been wanting to ask him for a while. 

“I still do. Not as often as before, but it’s only an hour-long flight to New York.” 

“And then you made the natural leap from modeling to law school?” 

She eyed him skeptically, daring him to fess up to his erratic career decisions. Steve shook his head ruefully; looking back, even he recognized some of his choices had been rash and born of stubborn conviction. 

“What can I say?” Steve said with a much too innocent shrug. “I live to confuse my ma.”

For the first time in all the months that they’d casually known each other, Maria’s lips pulled into a surreptitious smile. “Maybe you’re alright, Rogers. And if this trial,” she started to say, but her words abruptly trailed off as she noticed something happening ahead of them. “Is that Coulson?”

Steve followed her line of sight, and sure enough, Phil Coulson, natural-born accountant, was chatting to a handful of young women several yards ahead of them. He appeared to be trying (and failing) to chat them up, so Steve shot Maria a meaningful look and slowed his pace so they could eavesdrop as they passed. 

“Your cello solo last night was inspiring,” they heard him tell one of the women. He sounded hopeful and overeager as he hesitantly asked her out; blood in the water for most overachieving women. Steve and Maria slowed to a halt in the shadows and listened as the women laughed and called Phil a dork. 

With a look he hoped said, ‘stay here,’ Steve left Maria in the shadows and hurried up to Phil, feigning breathless excitement. 

“Ohh, my god! Phil, it’s you,” he cheered happily, intentionally changing his voice to sound more effeminate. “You saved my life last week, Harper had the best time with you!”

The women glanced between Steve and Phil curiously as Phil tried to keep up. “She did?”

“I’ve been trying to find you everywhere to show you; hi, sorry, totally barging in here,” he momentarily acknowledged the women as he scrolled through his phone for a video to show Phil. “Here! Victoria didn’t have your number, or she’d sent it to you.”

None other than Victoria and David Beckham looked back at Phil and the women from the phone in Phil’s hand. Between them stood a little seven year old girl in a pretty blue dress and a jean jacket, clutching a plush wolf. Phil glanced up at Steve before daring to hit play. 

“And there’s one more person who wanted to thank you,” Victoria said as David whispered something in their shy daughter’s ear that made her eyes sparkle with laughter. “Go on, darling.”

“Thank you, I love Mr. Fang,” she whispered, then promptly smushed her face into the plush toy and hid her blushing face against her dad’s shoulder.

“This is the most quiet she’s been, but since your excursion Harper absolutely delights in telling all of us about your trip to the zoo,” Victoria said, from behind the camera this time. “Thank you again, you saved the day!”

The video ended with David smiling and waving at the camera to encourage his daughter to do the same. Clutching Mr. Fang to her chest, Harper smiled bashfully at the camera and waved good-bye.

“You know the Beckhams?” the cellist whispered, still frozen in disbelief.

“Not yet,” Steve replied in a playful sing-song, “Victoria said they’ll want to do dinner next time they’re in town. See,” he said, addressing the women, “I was working with them but something came up for their babysitter in the last minute, and Phil came in clutch. Took her to the zoo, they got ice cream. You’re pretty much her new hero,” Steve teased Phil before backing away. “And the next time I call, you better answer!”

With that, Steve turned on his heel and strode away. Maria fell in beside him immediately, looking all but stunned. 

“I have so many questions,” she told him between furtive glances back at Coulson and the young women. “That girl just gave him her number.”

Steve stifled a laugh at her surprise, but he didn’t turn to look. He didn’t need to. Besides, they had work to do.

“You do that often?” she wondered with a morbid curiosity. 

“As often as I can,” Steve admitted with a smile even stone-faced Maria couldn’t resist returning. “Falling in love is the best feeling, everyone deserves to experience it.”

“I misjudged you, Rogers,” Maria said after another stretch of silence, once the shock of Steve’s stunt faded away. “You’re really something else.”

*** 

Between the case file and their coursework, Steve and Maria busied themselves in the library until well past midnight. Tuesday, Steve spent the day with Sam, Paulette, and Erin at the Beauty Oasis, so it wasn’t until Wednesday morning during his ma’s first break in the day that Steve was first confronted with an important detail about the case. 

“Stevie, wait a minute,” his ma had said as he told her the most basic details about the case. “Is that the same James Barnes you played with as a kid?”

Steve stopped talking and thought back. “What? I didn’t know a James Barnes, ma.”

“Yes, you did, angel: James Buchanan Barnes. Bucky,” she reminded him. “You two were inseparable until you were six years old.”

The world skidded to an immediate halt around him as two parts of Steve’s lives collided without warning. Steve flipped to the first page where the full name of each client was written - and sure enough, the husband’s name was James Buchanan Barnes. The same husband Mrs. Hansen had described as having an alcoholic, abusive father and who had tried his best to be a better man for his own children. 

“That sounds strange to me, Stevie. I don’t know if I buy it. After all he and his mother went through, do you really think Bucky would endanger his own children? A good man would sooner cut off his own arm than hurt—”

“Ma, I gotta go!” Steve said so fast it might as well have been a single word. He closed the file and dug in his notes until he finally found what he needed. 

His childhood best friend - the only friend who’d ever made him feel less like a lonely only child, the friend who’d been at his back through thick and thin - was going through the worst imaginable pain. Steve didn’t know if he was alone, but the thought that his friend was on the verge of losing his family—and for what, for alcohol? Other women? That wasn’t the Bucky Steve remembered. Sure, they’d been kids, but some things didn’t change. Steve was sure in his heart that his childhood friend would never endanger the people he loved in the same violent ways his father had threatened him and his mom.

The phone in his hand rang for an eternity of five seconds before someone finally answered. 

“Mr. Stark’s office, how may I help you?”

“Hi, this is Steve Rogers,” Steve was saying before he realized Tony may not remember his name. “We shared, um. We talked over Sno Balls on Monday? Is there any chance I could talk to him? It’ll only take a minute.”

The woman didn’t miss a beat. She politely asked him to hold, and returned a moment later to connect the call. 

“Mr. Rogers, this is a surprise. How can I help you?”

“Your client is James Buchanan Barnes,” Steve said with meaning, as if it wasn’t an obvious fact. “I, uh—I don’t know how to say this, but I promise it isn’t about the case. I think your client is my friend,” he tried to explain. “I want to see him, please. As a friend, nothing more.”

Tony was silent on the other end of the call. Steve had started to think Tony’d actually hung up on him when he finally asked, “Why?”

The question caught Steve by surprise. He hadn’t seen Bucky in over two decades; who was to say Bucky even wanted to see him? 

“Would you let your friend go through all this without trying to reach out?” 

“I’ll pass your message on to him,” Tony said after a beat. “Steve Rogers, right?”

“Right. The one who’d stuff newspapers in his shoes,” Steve added quickly, grasping for details that Bucky might remember from their childhood. “My mom’s name is Sarah.”

A faint click told Steve he’d been taken off of speakerphone. “Steve, is that you?” 

The voice was unfamiliar, but Steve would have recognized the way Bucky said his name anywhere. 

“Bucky! I can’t believe it’s actually you—”

“Steve, Stark’s saying that if we want to meet, we should do it somewhere no-one will recognize us. I mean,” he paused, and Steve could hear a thud in the background. Then, sounding very awkward in his attempt at cryptic-casual, “I mean, why don’t you join us? We’re at Tony’s place, just ...hanging out?”

Steve had no idea what was going on or why Bucky was suddenly trying to be so cloak and dagger about the whole thing, but before he could ask, Tony took the phone back and told Steve his address. 

Forgetting his questions and his confusion, Steve focused on what mattered and scribbled the address down on a piece of paper. He shot Maria a text to ask her to please cover for him in class that afternoon, then bolted for his car. 

*** 

Tony lived in a sleek, glass-encased high-rise overlooking Seaport Blvd. But then again, Tony’s poor taste was none of Steve’s business. He turned into the convenient underground parking garage, dropped his car off with the valet without a second thought, and jogged the whole way to the elevators.

When he got to the 17th floor, Bucky was already waiting for him in the elevator lobby. They ran at each other, each pulling the other into a strong embrace from either direction. For the first time in over twenty years, they were inseparable again. 

“Can’t believe it took me divorcing my wife to find you,” Bucky laughed wetly, then quickly stepped back to scrub at his eyes with the back of his hands. “Fucking hell. This—”

“Is a lot for anyone,” Steve filled in, gentling his words in counterpoint to Bucky’s anger. “Come on, let’s get inside.”

With his lips thinned in determination, Bucky nodded and led them back to Tony’s apartment. Tony was nowhere to be seen, but it didn’t matter; Steve was there to see Bucky. They grabbed some water out of the fridge and sat down at the kitchen table to talk. 

“I don’t live in Boston, but Maya did. Her family is from here, and they’re well connected with the government and—hell, everyone. So she filed for divorce here.”

“Home field advantage,” Steve said in understanding, and Bucky nodded. 

“First thing I could I moved ma out to California. She’s… the cold hurts her bones, you know. She’s doing okay; she’d love to see you,” Bucky couldn’t help but add with a smile. “The kids are with her for now. She thinks we’re on vacation, none of them… at least Maya let me have that. I can’t tell her, not like this.”

“What is going on, Buck? I’d never take you for drinking, not like that. Not around your children.”

Bucky’s lips twisted in despair. “Stevie, as God is my witness, I don’t remember a minute of it. I don’t know what’s happening to me. There are days that are just… blank. They tell me I was drunk, but I don’t—I don’t remember drinking. I don’t remember the women, I don’t—I don’t remember the arguments with my kids. God, why would I do that, Stevie?” 

“You wouldn’t,” Steve said with absolute conviction. There wasn’t a doubt in his mind. “We’ll figure it out, Buck.”

“But you’re on her side,” Bucky said quietly, hurting without laying any blame on his friend. “You’re a lawyer?”

“Law student,” Steve corrected. “Right here in Boston.”

“Oh,” Bucky said after a beat. “Why didn’t you stay in New York? You love New York.”

Steve opened his mouth, but only a helpless gust of a laugh escaped him. “It’s a really long story,” he hedged, floundering as he tried to think of a short summary. “I thought I loved a guy who only wanted to marry someone serious, so I worked hard and got into the same law program he did. Got all the way to Harvard Law School and realized he was a dickhead this whole time.”

Bucky stared at him for a while, and when he spoke, the only thing he said was: “ _Harvard? _”__

__“People keep saying that,” Steve sighed, half to himself. “It’s not Cooper Union.”_ _

__Bucky burst out laughing before he knew what had hit him. His reaction to Steve’s grumbling comment left Steve blushing at first, but it quickly occurred to him that maybe Bucky found it so funny because nothing else felt very funny in his life right now._ _

__“Yeah, laugh it up,” Steve muttered good-naturedly with a roll of his eyes. “Meanwhile, I have to live with the crème de la crème of Connecticut.”_ _

__The wince of sympathy barely interrupted Bucky’s deeply satisfying laughter. For the next seven to eight hours, they lounged in Tony’s apartment, catching up on life and all the little storms that had come and gone to change their lives since they’d last seen each other. Food deliveries arrived at regular intervals, first pizza and Chinese, then sushi and comfort food._ _

__Tony himself didn’t appear until late into the night. Bucky thanked him for arranging for the day, and after realizing that Steve had his own ride, said good night to them both and headed back to his hotel._ _

__“I swear that’s the first time I’ve seen him smile,” Tony told Steve in the doorway. “I can’t prove it, but my gut tells me there’s something going on. What do you think?”_ _

__Steve watched him for a moment in surprise. “You know I’m just a first-year student, right?”_ _

__“One of Hawley’s best,” Tony agreed without missing a beat. As if it was normal for a highly regarded lawyer with extensive experience to ask a first-year student for insight. “You’ve spent time with both Barnes and Hansen. What do you think?”_ _

__Steve ducked his head for a minute, momentarily overwhelmed to be trusted so implicitly. He did his best to put aside his long-standing love for his friend and simply consider the information at hand._ _

__Somewhere between Bucky’s description of his memory loss and his ma’s thoughts about how unlikely it was that a boy who’d seen first hand how alcoholism destroyed his family would turn around and do the same._ _

__“I think your gut is right,” he said quietly, but with conviction. “And I’ll help you prove it.”_ _

__***_ _

__Thursday night Steve convinced Maria to join him at the Plough and Stars to test the waters. Maybe he wasn’t the only one doubting Maya Hansen’s story._ _

__“Listen, Rogers, I get where you’re coming from,” Maria slurred softly as she leaned in close to offer advice she clearly felt was very important. “But, Hansen is our client, m‘kay? We are lawyers, we _argue_ a case: it is up to the judge to ...you know,” she tried to explain with a wandering gesture, “ _judge._ On her head be it, et cetera et cetera et cetera.”_ _

__Steve hemmed and hawed, stalling by counting up the cocktails they’d levelled between them during happy hour. By Steve’s calculation, they had both finished three drinks each, and Maria was slowly working on her fourth. Hopefully, if she had any doubts, four drinks would help her spill them faster._ _

__“Maybe,” he conceded, “if the children weren’t involved, maybe I could stomach it. But don’t they deserve us to do better?”_ _

__“They’re not paying Hawley, Hansen is,” Maria muttered, then with a tired whine, she muttered, “Rogers, why you bringing this up now? The hearing is tomorrow morning, in twenty-four hours we’ll have a big win to put on our resumes. People are going to remember the Barnes Hansen divorce for years, billions in assets—”_ _

__“I hadn’t talked to Bucky before! This is,” Steve trailed off with a sigh, but before he picked up his thought again he noticed the time on his watch. “No wonder I’m tired, it’s nearly ten. Time to hit the hay.”_ _

__“Never known someone as old as you, Rogers,” Maria sighed, but she didn’t seem upset about finishing her drink in two quick pulls and getting to her feet. Steve would never know how someone so much smaller than he held her liquor like a seven foot man, but somehow she did. Even one drink ahead, she was walking without trouble and counting out the tip while Steve felt pleasantly dizzy and fuzzy all over._ _

__Steve was pulling his coat on when he first noticed them._ _

__“Hill,” he hissed under his breath, gesturing with a jerk of his chin. Even buzzed, Maria was very casual about her secretive glance over her shoulder. “What’s Stark doing at a bar all the way out in Cambridge?”_ _

__“Looks like he’s picking someone up,” she commented with a knowing smirk, then with a perfectly straight face turned back to Steve and said, “oh, sorry: picking someone up is what we call meeting someone we want to spend time with and engaging them in—”_ _

__It took him a solid thirty seconds to realize she was joking._ _

__“Oh, shut up,” Steve huffed and made as if to leave without waiting for her, though he only made it a few steps before he stopped to let her finish putting her coat on and bundle up for the fall weather outside. “You and Natasha, I never know what either of you are thinking, you’re both impossible.”_ _

__“You think so?”_ _

__Steve was caught off-guard by the unexpectedly vulnerable tone in her quiet words and turned to look at her. “Really? No,” he smiled, suddenly delighted in his surprise. “Seriously? _No!_ The opposite! Have you told her?”_ _

__“Christ, where’d all that sunshine come from, Rogers?” Maria complained from under her long scarf, determined to hide her blush - but his goofy smile only meant one thing, and embarrassed that he’d noticed her blush anyway, she scoffed at him and marched out._ _

__“Come on, isn’t it past your bedtime?”_ _

__Steve had to stop himself from reaching for his phone and texting Nat something childish about how he knew someone liked her, but before he sealed his own fate, he glanced over at Tony Stark and the guy he was talking to again. They were deep in conversation, but the distance between them seemed more platonic than romantic._ _

__Steve could fix that._ _

__“You go ahead,” he told Maria when he caught up to her outside the bar. “I have one last thing I want to do. I’ll see you at Hawley’s office tomorrow morning, okay?”_ _

__Maria eyed him skeptically. “You’re not telling Natasha, are you?”_ _

__Steve gave her a cross look, then held up his hand with his pinky offered. “Promise.”_ _

__Maria glared in a way that months ago would have unnerved Steve beyond repair, but now he knew her well enough to know it was her grudging way to say, ‘the things you make me do, Rogers!’_ _

__One was more stubborn than the other, and soon she hooked her pinky onto his in agreement to his promise. Without another word, she turned around and hurried back to campus where she could presumably day dream about her crush and blush endlessly without judgment._ _

__Steve watched her go until she was across the street and then he turned back into the bar. Maria was happy, and maybe soon she’d be happier with Natasha - but even a good night could become better. A little more love in the world never hurt anyone._ _

__Without a second thought (and a little braver than usual from those boozy cocktails), Steve made his way to Tony and his romance._ _

__Steve walked up from behind them and clapped his hand gently on Tony’s shoulder, squeezing it in greeting. “Oh, man! Tony,” he said, intentionally sounding a little loopier than he felt. These things were easier to sell if you seemed under the influence._ _

__Tony stiffened immediately at his touch, and both he and his friend ( _especially_ his friend) looked ready to punch him in the face. Still, Steve persisted. _ _

__“Is this the guy you’ve been telling me about?” Steve stage whispered, smiling at the handsome black man like a lovesick friend. “Listen, the way he talks about you, I thought he was pulling my leg. I didn’t think you were actually real, but your eyes really are the kindest eyes I’ve ever seen.”_ _

__The more Steve talked, the more he felt the tension in Tony’s body relaxing - until Steve started complimenting his friend. Now, Tony was holding his breath. So Steve was right! Maybe this was the step Tony hadn’t dared to take yet, and he was anxious to see how his date would respond._ _

__“Who are you?” Tony’s friend asked, incredulous, and Steve giggled before he lost it and called himself Cupid._ _

__“I’m a law student working on a case with Tony Stark—well, kind of,” Steve realized, then shook the detail off. It wasn’t pertinent to this blossoming romance. “Point is, I know enough about this man to tell you not to let him undersell himself. Tony is incredible at what he does; you should see the way he cares about his clients. I’m telling you, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a kinder and more genuine man—”_ _

__Tony’s date was slowly shifting from incredulous disbelief to gleeful interest, and just as Steve could see the laughter coming, Tony held up his hands and raised his voice._ _

__“Okay, I think that’s enough! Steve,” he said in a strained voice, as if Steve’s compliments had somehow been embarrassing. But there was nothing embarrassing or disingenuine—_ _

__Tony pinned him with a serious look. “You’re trying to set me up with my best friend. My _straight_ best friend,” he added emphatically. _ _

__That was the drop that broke the dam. Beside them, Tony’s friend howled with shameless laughter until he was snorting every time he tried to breathe. The snorting sounds even had Tony smirking in amusement, leaving only Steve to blush and feel a fleeting sense of embarrassment over his miscalculation._ _

__“Well,” Steve said after a beat, finding his smile again. “That’s fair. Didn’t mean to interrupt, but for the record, I wasn’t lying: you do have very kind eyes.”_ _

__“No, wait - come back here,” Tony’s friend hurried to say before Steve could so much as step away from them. “Thank you. Sit down, Tony never tells me shit about work. I want to hear this.”_ _

__“I tell you things!” Tony defended himself, indignant, though he still spared a glance around them to gesture to a free chair Steve could pull over. “Rhodey, Steve; Steve, Rhodey. Steve is one of Hawley’s interns.”_ _

__“Oh, that ha—I mean, woman,” Rhodey recovered, barely. “You were saying, Steve? Tony fights for his clients.”_ _

__“It _is_ my job,” Tony felt the need to say, but Steve couldn’t help himself from laughing quietly at the suggestion. As if all lawyers would go to the lengths Tony did to defend a client who had so clearly lost faith in himself. _ _

__Amused and respectfully enamoured, Steve waved off Tony’s modesty and leaned in closer to conspire with his much more reasonable friend._ _

__“Without saying anything about the case itself,” he began, “I knew Tony’s client - Bucky - back when we were little kids. We grew up in the same neighborhood, we were like brothers until my dad passed and my mom and I had to move. His dad didn’t have the best relationship with alcohol,” he explained more quietly, sobering in the memory of the state he and Bucky sometimes found Bucky’s mom, and the split lip and black eye Bucky’d wear to school whenever he tried to stand up for her._ _

__“For a man like that, there’s nothing worse than becoming your father. Bucky barely wanted to talk to me after I told him I believe Tony, I think there’s more to the case than we know. But he can’t deal with it, and my guess is it’s because excusing himself sounds too much like someone excusing his dad’s behavior. He can’t see how different they are, and I bet he’d have given Maya everything by now if it wasn’t for Tony,” he finished with a smile, though he seemed to be the only one smiling now. Rhodey had grown thoughtful and serious as he listened, and Tony stared back at him like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing._ _

__“I admire how you’re prioritizing your case,” Steve added in a more upbeat tone, a little uncomfortable with the stunned looks on both Tony and Rhodey’s faces. “Bucky can always make more money, but his kids. Don’t let him lose shared custody, he doesn’t deserve to be cut out of their lives no matter what he did.”_ _

__Tony’s lips curved up in a smile. “I think it was the first time I saw some life in him,” he told Steve, as if he needed to explain why he did what he did. “Sometimes I get the feeling they’re all he’s got left that he gives a damn about.”_ _

__“I’ll be right back,” Rhodey said to excuse himself as he got up and grabbed his jacket. “Bathroom.”_ _

__Tony acknowledged him with a nod as Steve spoke up with a question. “How do you do it?” he wondered, genuinely baffled. “How can you still be that… I don’t know, dedicated? Your whole career is about seeing marriages fall apart.”_ _

__“And you think that’s a bad thing?” Tony asked, equally sincere._ _

__“It’s the death of love, isn’t it? That’s toxic to the soul,” Steve said by way of explanation, gesturing with his hands as if to encompass all the joy in the world. “Love and compassion is what life is about, what more do we want? We want to be loved and respected as individuals, flaws and warts and all. Divorce is the end, it’s two people who’ve given up on loving each other. That’s… that’s tragic.”_ _

__“I think most people agree with you,” Tony admitted, but then he fell quiet in thought for a brief moment as he sipped his beer. Steve waited patiently, giving him the time to collect his thoughts._ _

__“When I first got into law, I thought about my mom. My parents didn’t have a happy marriage, and when they divorced, she had very little left in her name. Dad had the money, so he had the best lawyers. I didn’t like that,” Tony added, in case it wasn’t obvious in his tone. “So I thought, I wouldn’t let someone be taken advantage of again. It became a game, kind of: how much can I win on behalf of my client? And in 2015, the day we legalized same-sex marriage, I jumped right into same-sex divorce. Business was great; there’s something about marriage that kills the magic for so many couples._ _

__“But that was when I started to think differently. I didn’t see it as a game anymore. Sometimes, for some clients, I still get that thrill, but I don’t see divorce as the end of a relationship. People make crazy decisions in love, and same-sex couples who had waited so long for that validation really showed us that. Marriage can be a big part of that giddy excitement that makes love so special - and it is a profoundly special connection whether it lasts fifty years or fifty hours. The alternative is guilting people into staying in a relationship with someone who doesn’t fulfill them or make them happy. So, the way I’ve come to see it,” he said in summary, “marriage isn’t a fairy tale, and divorce isn’t the end of the world. It’s simply one chapter closing so that another chapter can begin. My job is to help ease them through a fair divorce so that both parties have a chance to move on and find happiness again.”_ _

Never in his wildest dreams had Steve thought of divorce as something equal to marriage, but now he wouldn’t breathe for fear of missing a second of this new perspective Tony shared. He felt like a man who’d walked through life with blinders only to now have them taken off so he could see even more of the beauty in the world around him. _One chapter closing so that another can begin._ Steve didn’t know if he should be crawling into Tony’s lap for a hug or if that would be too much joy for him to handle and his tumbling heartbeat would burst out of his ears. 

_Ease them through a fair divorce so that they can move on and find happiness again._

_It’s a profoundly special connection whether it lasts fifty years or fifty hours._

__“I shouldn’t be here,” Steve found himself saying before he knew he was speaking the words out loud. Tony’s expression quirked, and Steve quickly realized how unclear his statement was. “I shouldn’t be at law school. In college, I used to date Brock Rumlow, he’s another first-year intern on Hawley’s team. One night about a year ago, I thought he was going to propose. It was the happiest day of my life. He’s planning a political career, and I was so proud and excited for him, but then he broke up with me instead. An underwear model wasn’t serious enough for a future senator, no matter how much I loved him.”_ _

__Tony had suddenly gone very, very quiet, and Steve couldn’t stop himself from continuing._ _

__“I thought, if I worked hard and showed him that I could get into Harvard Law School like him, he’d realize that I could be serious, too, and he’d fall in love with me again the way I loved him. I had to do all these things to learn that he never actually saw me as more than something fun to pass the time with in college. But I can’t bring myself to be angry with him. Look at what I have because of him,” Steve said, growing more animated with every word. “I never knew I had it in me to work this hard, to get this far. Thanks to Brock, I have friends and a whole new world open to me because I felt that love was worth the effort. And still none of it has been as rewarding as learning how hard I was willing to try for myself, because I deserved better. We all deserve better.”_ _

__The silence stretched between them like the sun cresting the horizon, warm, bright, and full of life. Tony watched him with a smile he couldn’t shake, a smile that only seemed to grow every time he shook his head in stunned amazement._ _

__“Steve,” he finally whispered with the excitement of a boy sharing a treasured secret. “I want to show you something. Do you trust me?”_ _

__Maybe Steve should have asked where Tony wanted to take him; he certainly should have asked to do it another day, since both of them had places to be early the next day. But there was something about the feverish affection warm in Tony’s bright eyes that left Steve breathless and crazy enough to smile back and say, “I do.”_ _

__He didn’t second-guess himself until the next morning when he woke up in a cloud of pristine white bedsheets in an anonymous hotel bed with a splitting headache and an unfamiliar gold band on his left ring finger._ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those unfamiliar with Cooper Union, it is an incredible and a historic institution of the arts in New York City that's been there since 1859. It's relevant in the context of this story because **their acceptance rate is more competitive** than Harvard Law School. But what I personally I admire most about them is their continued commitment to their original goal to break class privilege and support artists exclusively based on merit. (I'd like to think canon Steve's biggest dream would've been to go there; not only could he do what he wanted, but he'd be no financial burden on his ma anymore with all their financial support!) 
> 
> This is [taken from Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooper_Union): Inspired in 1830 when Peter Cooper learned about the government-supported École Polytechnique in France, Cooper Union was established in 1859. The school was built on a radical new model of American higher education based on founder Peter Cooper's fundamental belief that an education "equal to the best technology schools [then] established" should be accessible to those who qualify, independent of their race, religion, sex, wealth or social status, and should be "open and free to all". Since 1859, they have sincerely committed to the idea of keeping it "open and free for all" by providing all those who qualify full scholarships until 2014 when the economy forced their hand (read the few paragraphs on Wiki if you're interested, I'm incredibly impressed with everything they still did for their students and continue to do), and by last year they committed to returning to return to fully funding ALL undergrads again by 2028. 
> 
> If you google it, the first "notable alumni" that shows up is Jeffrey Epstein, but rest assured: he switched colleges by the second year. Turns out he is (and I'd argue for many, many reasons) not Cooper Union material.


	5. Bigger. Bolder. Blonder.

Steve wasn’t alone in bed. Was that better, or worse? 

With the thundering gallop of his heartbeat pounding in his ears, Steve sat up slowly and with great care, doing his best not to jostle the man sleeping beside him. Long, naked legs stretched out from under the duvet, tan and lean, but the rest of him was bundled up in their shared duvet. Steve inched closer until finally he realized who it had to be. 

That nose; those lips. It could only be Tony. 

A soreness in Steve’s lower back and thighs reminded him of the night before, but Steve shook the memories away as he tried to take stock of where they were. The more he looked around, the less it seemed to be a hotel room. Instead, it looked like some tidy and impersonal space taken out of a magazine - tastefully decorated, but without personal touches or colorful mementos. Given how Bucky and Tony both lived in Los Angeles, Steve assumed it was Tony’s bedroom in a furnished rental. 

While peering around the room in search of curious insights into this man he barely knew, Steve noticed the clock on the far wall. It was well past eight on Friday morning—the judge would expect them (and especially Tony) within the hour. 

Steve dove across the king size bed to shake Tony awake. “Tony! Tony, get up right now!” 

All he got at first was a grunt of displeasure, but with enough persistence and shaking, Tony slowly turned to give him a withering look. 

“No shaking after fucking,” he mumbled half-heartedly, pushing himself up carefully. It took him a minute to notice the time, too. “What’s—oh, _shit_.” 

Forgetting his earlier soreness and any concern about his nudity, Tony leapt out of bed and ran out of the bedroom without so much as looking at Steve. 

When had that ever made someone feel good about themselves?

In his absence, the room loomed around Steve in silent judgment. His clothes were nowhere to be found - not even his phone was charging on the bedside table. Twisted thoughts tumbled together faster than Steve could recognize them until his insecurities reared up to wonder whether Tony even wanted him there - in his home and in his life. 

But Steve dug his heels in and did his best to pull himself together. As he reminded himself to give Tony the benefit of the doubt, it quickly occurred to him that Tony’s side of the room was equally bare. After all, hadn’t Steve just mistaken the space for a hotel room _because_ it lacked personal touches? 

“Thank you, Your Honor,” he heard Tony saying on his way back to the bedroom, and Steve quickly scraped the sheets and duvet around his lap before Tony came in. “Yes, Your Honor, and not a minute later.” 

Steve took a deep breath and tried to calm his tingling nerves. Focus on the present. Tony was still on the phone with the judge, so Steve used Tony’s distraction to his advantage to really look at the man whom he’d evidently married the night before. Even naked Tony was a striking man, confident and composed under pressure in a way Steve could only aspire to be. Shameless and helplessly smitten, Steve drank in the sight of his newlywed husband. In profile, Tony was a dream - from the elegant silhouette of his nose and lips, to the perky round shape of his ass. From the back his lean body revealed its strength in the shape of his thighs, his calves, and his sinewy shoulders, but it was from the front that he was truly breathtaking. Steve could have lost himself in those eyes, in the sinful promise curling his smile. Given half a chance, Steve could spend hours on his knees to see all the ways Tony’s lips exposed his passion further. 

“Steve? Hey, are you alright?”

Tony perched a respectful distance away on the bed. The concern in his voice caught Steve by surprise, and he quickly shook off his daydreams and shoved more of the duvet over his lap in an effort to give Tony his undivided and PG-rated attention. 

“I didn’t mean to run out,” Tony said softly, “given the …circumstances, I requested a continuance.”

“Did, um,” Steve started to say as his eyes caught on the golden ring on Tony’s hand. His question seemed redundant now, but he needed to ask it. “Did we get married last night?”

As if needing the confirmation, too, Tony glanced down at his own hand. “I think we did. But it’s okay, Steve,” Tony said in a gentling tone, doing his utmost to ensure Steve that he didn’t need to worry. “Nobody knows about it, we can just keep it quiet and file for divorce on Monday.” 

For the first time that morning, shame washed over Steve’s back like ice-cold rain. In a voice smaller than he’d ever felt, he whispered, “What?”

“I don’t—uh,” Tony floundered, visibly struggling to find the words. “I didn’t mean for that to happen, Steve, I promise. Yesterday wasn’t some grand scheme to rope you into marriage. I wanted to show you the lighthouse chapel and then ask you out for a date sometime after the case, maybe to dinner somewhere on the water or, but I guess - all those young people in love, and your smile in the moonlight, I, I—”

The more he grasped for words and tried to explain himself, the more Steve realized that Tony was as nervous as he was. Maybe they were in the same boat of wishful thinking after all. 

“Got swept away,” Steve finished softly, finding his smile again. “We both did, Tony. It was an incredible night. You…” he added in a whisper, sheepish in this undefined spell they had fallen into. “You were incredible.” 

The nervous tension around Tony’s eyes eased as his incredulity gave way to tender admiration. Steve couldn’t help but reach for him, but swallowed down the impulse to lean in for a kiss. It had all moved so quickly and he wasn’t sure where they stood with boundaries of intimacy, but already he knew he would move heaven and hell to live in the adoring light of Tony’s affection. This was nothing like the passionate lust or determined possessiveness Steve had enjoyed in bed with men who openly said they loved him - men whose carnal interest took over the moment Steve made himself available. But Tony’s gaze was lost in love with Steve’s eyes and maybe something else—something more than his pecs and his lats and his glutes. 

Had Steve really gone his whole life thinking he’d experienced love without being seen the way Tony saw him?

“When,” Steve murmured unevenly, too distracted by Tony’s soft lips. “When, in court?”

“Tuesday,” Tony whispered, not needing complete sentences to understand. 

Steve jerked his chin in an uncoordinated attempt to nod. “What if I wanted to stay?”

“I’d like you to stay.”

“What if,” Steve said more slowly, wetting his lips as he imagined his wish coming true. “What if I wanted to kiss you?”

Tony cursed softly under his breath as his gaze tracked Steve’s lips moving over his lips. “Then I am yours to kiss.” 

*** 

Steve bit the bullet almost immediately after he got back to campus and called his ma with the news. It was the only call he desperately wished he didn’t have to make, but the only one he absolutely needed to. She was his only family; she was his everything. But that afternoon, for the first time in his life, Steve made her cry. Unable to stomach himself, he made another call to his good friends at the Beauty Oasis. The three of them dropped their respective plans and collected at the salon with an assortment of donuts, ice creams, and gooey grilled cheese sandwiches. 

“Ma’s gonna kill me.”

“You wish,” Paulette scoffed quietly as she pulled apart a blueberry cake donut and pointed one end at Steve. “She’s gonna skin you first, and then if you’re lucky she’ll kill you.”

“I can’t believe you told her,” Sam seconded, and Erin could only agree. 

“Why did you tell her?” she asked. “You could’ve waited a week when you’re dating the guy or something.”

“I can’t _not_ tell ma I got married,” Steve tried to argue, but clearly he was the only after-hours inhabitant of the Beauty Oasis who felt that way. 

“You don’t call your mother to tell her you got married on a drunken whim, but ‘don’t worry, he’s a great guy’ who insists on keeping it absolutely secret and divorcing you the first chance he gets.”

Sam and Erin echoed their support for Paulette’s wisdom. Steve slouched further into his hair chair wondering how his life could be so good and so rotten at the same time. He had kind, dependable friends, he was doing well in his program, and he’d met a really great guy, but he’d also married a one-night stand and broken his ma’s heart.

“He doesn’t sound that great,” Erin announced with palpable distaste for whoever this ‘Tony Stark’ character was. “What crackerjack wouldn’t climb every rooftop to shout at the world about how lucky he is to be with you?”

“He said the divorce was for me, that he didn’t want to take advantage of me,” Steve explained, but even he didn’t seem convinced. “That I deserve better than someone twelve years my senior.”

“Why, are his balls sagging to his knees already?” Paulette wanted to know at the same time as Erin muttered, “More like, he got what he wanted and now he’s done.” 

“Or maybe he’s a divorce attorney who wants to save face by refusing to admit he’s just as bad as his clients,” Sam chimed in with a touch of objectivity.

Paulette scoffed again, this time in agreement of Erin’s assumption. “Either way,” she said, “he’s just like any other man following his prick to greener pastures.”

“...unless he didn’t get it,” Sam said after a beat, sitting up in his chair. “Is it too late to get an annulment?”

There were a lot of things that Steve couldn’t remember from Thursday night. He couldn’t remember the drive from Boston to Quincy; Google told him it was a twenty to thirty minute drive, but Steve would have sworn on his ma’s life that it was no more than five minutes. They’d gotten into Tony’s car and started talking about anything and everything - from their most memorable travel mishaps to their favorite literary villains. When Tony told him they were going to visit a chapel built in a former lighthouse, Steve couldn’t help but tell Tony that he’d never been to a lighthouse, and how one of his bucket-list holidays was to one year spend September driving up the Eastern seaboard from Georgia to Prince Edward Island, where he’d heard the fall foliage was something out of a storybook. 

The lamp of the lighthouse shone brightly from a distance, and Steve remembered sitting on a bench with Tony and bundled up together in a blanket from his car. The sea-facing side of the chapel was made out of glass, and from a distance Steve and Tony could watch one couple after another stand and commit to their love before an affable priest. 

Steve didn’t remember which of them suggested they become the third pair of the night to marry, or what paperwork they scribbled through or who served as their respective witnesses. But he remembered the look of burgeoning adoration in Tony’s heated gaze, and he remembered them pulling off the highway onto an empty outlook point over the ocean; he remembered the top coming down and them unraveling their clothes between them. He remembered the attentive fingers and eager mouth that drove him to near lunacy, he remembered pushing Tony back and straddling his hips. He moved to the ebb and flow of the ocean waves crashing against the cliffs below, with Tony’s strong, grasping fingers entwined in his to keep him in his place as Steve rode him at his leisure. 

Across the sky the stars and the water all became one, smoothed under the cool moonlight. Steve remembered those last, desperate seconds when instinct took over and his eyes slipped shut, and as the pleasure consumed him, thundering through his parched body and brought him back to life, Tony pulled his hands free to cradle Steve’s face like a treasure, chasing his uneven gasps with tender, loving lips until Steve forgot about all the world and the light around them and lost himself in Tony’s soft lips and breathless kisses. 

How they got dressed, how they made it back to Boston, and how they got to Tony’s apartment was lost to Steve, but he did remember tumbling into bed with Tony’s thighs around his waist. The dimmed light in Tony’s room mimicked the setting sun, and with unhurried devotion, they found their rhythm again without the obscuring cover of darkness. 

Paulette laughed, stealing Steve away from the memory of giddy euphoria in Tony’s eyes as Steve chased his pleasure in Tony’s slack, satisfied body, and bringing him back to the present. 

“At least you got one good thing out of it,” Paulette said with a bittersweet smile. “But was that good enough to hold on to?”

Sam nodded and echoed her sentiment. “There’s a lot of fish in the sea, Steve. Take it from someone who learned it the hard way: you don’t always need to reel in the one that’s fighting back.”

Steve didn’t need much time to think over Paulette’s question. He knew his answer already, even if he also knew it wasn’t the right one. 

*** 

Talking with his friends made Steve feel less lonely, but he still felt distracted and lost at sea. He threw himself into his overlooked class assignments and did his best to pick apart the case ...except he kept getting distracted by the gold ring hidden in his desk drawer. It wasn’t anything special, and since the rings hadn’t cost them anything in addition to the seventy-eight dollar marriage ceremony, Steve was fairly sure it was a cheap knock-off that would turn green given half a chance. 

The worst part was, that didn’t bother him. 

Steve could understand if they both saw the wedding as an impulsive mistake and decided to move on amicably. And when he was perfectly honest with himself, he could admit that he’d be (more than) open to agreeing that it was a lucky accident and giving them a chance. But he couldn’t handle the mixed signals. Tony felt something for him—something Steve badly wanted in his life—but Tony also seemed determined to undo their marriage. As time passed, his attempt to protect Steve from making a mistake sounded increasingly patronizing, and Steve wished he could pin him down and demand the truth. 

He slept fitfully that night only to be startled awake at the crack of dawn on Monday morning by someone pounding on his door. Disoriented and barely awake, Steve threw on some clothes and stumbled to see what had happened. 

A folded paper was thrown at his chest. “Is it true?”

Steve blinked bleary eyes open at Maria’s barely-concealed rage. He made a questioning sound and picked up the paper to see what she meant. 

The Boston Gazette was folded to the sixth page, and in big, bold lettering under the fold Steve read the shocking social gossip of the day over photos of himself and Tony, side-by-side. 

_Opposing attorneys find love amidst Barnes-Hansen divorce!_

On one hand, Steve was inwardly pleased by the photo they’d chosen of him - something from the Armani fall collection earlier in the year where he was fully dressed. The close-up photo of Tony in a well-cut suit, smiling at an event of some kind, was also very flattering. Steve resisted the urge to ask if he could keep the paper. 

“That was the emergency on Friday, you _eloped_ with the opposing counsel?”

Steve looked from the paper to the woman he considered his first friend on campus. For the life of him, he didn’t know what to say. 

“Are you trying to make enemies, Rogers?” she growled, then shouldered her way past him into his room. In the time his drowsy senses processed that her anger was on his behalf, Natasha stepped into the light. 

“Is he using you for leverage?” she asked in deceptively calm, measured words. 

“He wants to divorce me.”

From behind him in his room, Steve heard Maria mutter ‘typical men,’ but Natasha didn’t react either way. 

“We have a meeting with Hawley tonight. She wants to see you there early,” she told him. “Maria said you had second thoughts about Hansen.”

It wasn’t a question as much as an invitation to discuss, and Steve stepped aside to let Natasha into his room. They gathered around his couch, Maria and Natasha on either end while Steve got comfortable on the rug. Quietly and calmly, he recounted everything: his first conversation with Tony about their priority to keep joint custody, and Bucky’s forgotten episodes of infidelity and intoxication. 

In turn, Maria told Steve that his first hunch about the financial records had turned up something important after all. In his absence, they’d found evidence of handsome compensation for both sex workers in question. 

“But didn’t Sharon say he’d be able to hide the paper trail if he wanted to?” Steve recalled, frowning down at the file that Maria handed him. “She made it sound like it was easy.”

“You might want to take that up with her,” Maria said, then smoothly changed the subject. “Remember when Hansen said she was a graduate student at MIT?”

Steve nodded. “With a full ride, yeah.”

“She listed her education in an early version of her modeling biography - it didn’t mention her interest in graduate school, but it says she finished a double major in plant botany and biochemistry at Princeton.”

Steve liked where her head was at, but when he looked at Natasha, her expression was as unclear as ever. When she finally spoke, it caught Steve well off guard. 

“Steve, you have to count on Hawley kicking you out tonight. There’s a good chance she’ll take this personally, and I wouldn’t blame her. It’s unusual to take on first-year students, and this… this is not the press what she expected.”

“Don’t worry,” Maria told Natasha with a meaningful smirk. “I won’t let him out of my sight.”

*** 

It turned out that Maria kept her promises. Gossip surrounding first-year law students at Harvard weren’t usually this juicy and unproblematic: people were either caught in terrible acts of entitlement, or they were making headlines for remarkable contributions to public policy. Controversial romance between two men on opposite sides of a case was just enough low-stakes excitement that nobody thought twice about having an opinion. 

From the minute Steve stepped out of his dorm room, he could feel people watching him. Most of the curiosity came from people he vaguely recognized - other first-years who knew about his unusual background and remembered the shock when Hawley picked him for one of the four coveted internship spots. 

“You’d think their eyes would fall out for all the staring,” Maria muttered from Steve’s side. She never reminded him that she was intentionally keeping him company or otherwise noted how frustrating it all was. She wasn’t the type to need recognition for a job she’d set out to do. Steve did his best to focus on her and adopt her easy nonchalance in the face of all the unwanted attention. 

“You think this is bad, you should’ve seen them gawking after my first Calvin Klein series went live,” Steve said with a sigh, keeping his eyes straight ahead. How’d he keep doing this to himself? “Sometimes I wish I could just shut up and fit in.”

“Why’d you want to be a schmuck like them?” Maria asked without missing a beat. 

Steve didn’t have an answer to her question, but the sentiment was loud and clear, and Steve couldn’t resist smiling back at his friend. 

Their first class of the day was Stromwell, and Maria had a seat further in the back like a sane person who knew better than to sit in the front row. Then again, if anything could take his mind off this mess, it was Stromwell. 

As always, there was a quote on the board without a source. 

__

‘Sometimes the bravest and most important thing you can do is just show up.’

Steve had gotten lucky with a (Madonna) quote earlier in the semester, and this, too, felt terribly familiar. The name of the author was on the tip of his tongue - he could almost picture her name on the cover of his book—

Someone in the back raised their hand and identified the author as Brené Brown. Stromwell gave her usual nod of acknowledgement, but as she turned to get the day started, she faced Steve. Unlike her characteristic intensity that demanded the very best of him, Stromwell looked pleased to see him. 

“Innovation, revolution, and progress. All of these steps have been taken despite the risk of failure,” she said, giving every word its due gravity. She paused then and met Steve’s eyes. “Without recognizing the fear of failure and shame, one rejects the vulnerability necessary to press onwards.”

Her meaning couldn’t have been more clear, and Steve found himself swallowing down a knot of grateful relief. He might be a laughing stock who’d burned a bridge with an influential professor in his first year in the program, but least one of Steve’s professors still believed in him. 

In a place so foreign and different from anything he’d known, he had friends in his peer group and an ally among the faculty. There was no telling how any of this would shake out, but Steve could live with that. Good people were reaching out to let him know he wasn’t alone, and for now - for Steve - that was enough.

*** 

By the time Steve got out of his first class, his phone had blown up with messages from people who were only now catching on to the news. He deleted the voicemails Brock had left and skipped the one message from his ma for a more private occasion. There was a solid chance he might cry, and that was the last thing he needed to do in public. 

Erin had texted from herself and Paulette to ask if he was okay—they clearly remembered Steve and Tony had intended to keep their shotgun wedding under wraps, and wanted to be sure he was okay. Around the same time, a call from Sam had come in and he’d left a brief voicemail to let Steve know he’d be home all day if he needed company.

Even Bucky had called once, but instead of leaving a voicemail he’d sent two text messages. ‘I’m not gay but I get it,’ the first one said, followed quickly by, ‘Does that mean you work for me now??’

Steve fired back a series of rolling eye emojis before bracing himself for the last message waiting for him. He found a bench, sat down, and played the voicemail Tony had left twenty minutes earlier. 

‘Hi Steve, I can only assume you’ve heard the news by now. I swear it wasn’t me, I don’t know who leaked it, but I hope the vultures aren’t giving you a hard time. If Hawley lets you go, call me. I still have some pull in the department, I’ll get you an internship with my firm to be on the case. I’ll only be grateful for your help,’ he added in a gentler tone that lifted Steve’s doubts into a private smile. ‘Or, you know, uh. Call me? When you get the chance. Or come by! Either way. Right—okay, bye.’

The rest of the day passed quickly and without added obstacles. As people noticed he wasn’t doing anything out of the ordinary, they started to lose interest in pointing and staring after him. By the time Steve and Maria finished their last class and grabbed dinner, they only had the six o’clock meeting with Hawley left for the night. Maria offered to skip her bi-monthly Feminists Against Capitalism meet-up to keep him company, but since it had all quieted down, Steve assured her that he’d be fine. He would just head over to Hawley’s offices early and get some reading done in a conference room before their meeting. 

She wished him luck and left for her group meeting. Steve did exactly what he’d set out to do - Hawley’s secretary even helped him find an unoccupied office so he could enjoy a comfortable chair as he worked through his assigned reading. 

Everything was going well until Hawley’s secretary leaned into the office again and informed him he was expected at Hawley’s office. Steve thanked her, then double checked the time. The meeting wasn’t due to begin for another thirty minutes. Much too late, Steve recalled Natasha’s words from earlier that morning—Hawley wanted to see him before the meeting, and he should expect to be kicked off the team. 

Steve took a moment to brace himself. This morning, facing the world had felt impossible, but he’d done it anyway and it hadn’t been half as difficult as he’d imagined. _Just show up_ , Stromwell had said. If Steve had learned anything in his time at Harvard, it was that his anxiety and insecurities were infinitely worse than the meeting itself. 

He packed up in a hurry and made his way to Hawley’s office. 

“Come in,” Hawley said when Steve appeared in the doorway. The warm lighting in the room created a cozy atmosphere in the office, and Steve hovered in front of the closed office door fighting the urge to flick on more lights. 

“Have a seat, Mr. Rogers. I hear congratulations are in order.”

She seemed too casual about the whole thing, and it left Steve on edge. Still, he mustered a smile and quietly said, “Thank you, Professor. But I assure you, my personal relationship has no impact on my work, I’m no less invested in representing Mrs. Hansen’s case.”

After all, it wasn’t a lie. He’d had his doubts about Hansen well before eloping.

“I am glad to hear that, Mr. Rogers,” Hawley said and came around to take a seat in a chair opposite him. “Your intuition about the case has been helpful to the case so far, it would be to the detriment of the case to see you go. In fact, I have been impressed with how you’ve handled yourself so far,” she smiled, leaning a little closer until their knees nearly touched. “And this… misstep can be corrected easily. That’s why I asked to see you today.”

Steve stared back at her, overwhelmed by the praise but a little taken aback. “I appreciate it, Professor,” he replied, a touch hesitant. Who was she to call his marriage a misstep? 

“I think it’s time to discuss your career path. Have you thought about where you might be a summer associate?”

“Professor, I don’t see what that—”

“You should be,” she said over him. “They are highly competitive, you need to plan ahead. Build up the right experiences, and the right connections. Developing these connections takes time and investment, you have to demonstrate your character so people know you are reliable. A team player.”

Her words were benign, even inspiring. But there was something about the way she looked at him that made Steve sick to his stomach. Hawley didn’t seem concerned or interested in Steve’s career; she looked at him like he was a piece of meat, the same way most people looked at him after realizing the body modeling this year’s Calvin Klein catalogue belonged to him. 

He needed an exit out of this conversation, and he needed it fast. 

“Professor Hawley, I’m not sure I follow,” he tried, doing his best to politely signal his discomfort without seeming ungrateful. 

“Then let me explain it for you,” Hawley drawled. “You have worked very hard to be here, Mr. Rogers. We are all rather impressed with your progress. I would like to see you make similar efforts in your personal relationships,” she finished, with meaning.

A cold rock dropped in Steve’s gut. He really hoped this wasn’t what he thought it was. “With whom, Professor?”

“I’m glad you asked,” she purred with a broad, self-satisfied smile. “You see, I have a daughter who is your age. You would be a good match for her, provide handsome children.” 

A sudden knock on Hawley’s office door shattered the tension in the room, and Steve jerked up in his seat to put as much distance as he could between himself and the professor. Whoever was on the other side of the door didn’t wait to be invited, but brazenly pushed the door open and stepped into the room. 

Of all the people, Steve had never expected to see Sharon barging in when he needed a rescue. 

“Professor Hawley, could we speak?” she asked, speaking as if Steve wasn’t shivering in a cold sweat and Professor Hawley didn’t look like a spooked horse. “It is about the case; I have a concern about the—oh, Steve, do you mind?” she said, finally noticing him. “I’d like to speak with the professor in private.”

Her words snapped him out of his frozen stupor, and without a word Steve grabbed his briefcase and hurried out. His escape felt like an out of body experience - distantly, he heard Hawley demand he stop and finish their conversation, and he heard her bark at Sharon for barging in uninvited, but his legs carried him out of there of their own accord, working on instinct to get him as far from danger as possible. 

It wasn’t until he was riding up the elevator that he realized where he was going. It wasn’t until Tony opened the door that he realized why. 

Tony took one look at him and grew pale. He urged Steve into his apartment and told him to have a seat, and soon Steve was bundled in a large, plush blanket big enough to drown in. 

Tony sat down on the coffee table in front of Steve and offered him an unopened box of Sno Balls. “You’ll feel better,” he promised. 

Steve eyed the box and decided to take his word for it. He tore into the box and pulled one of the unhealthy indulgences free. The sweet, flaky coconut shavings and the smooth, gooey marshmallow layer over a cream-filled chocolate cake tasted like a dream. For every bite he was taken back to long-forgotten childhood victories of eating endless candy in front of Saturday morning cartoons, a time where a strict diet wasn’t part of his life and Captain Crunch counted as a nutritious breakfast. 

In soft, careful words, Tony asked, “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not really,” Steve managed through gritted teeth. He was finishing his second Sno Ball when it dawned on him that his chills were fading away, which was the same time he realized he’d been shivering since he sat down—maybe even longer. He huddled further into his blanket for warmth, desperate for comfort. 

He’d been propositioned before, that sure wasn’t new. It was a fact of life as a model - photographers, designers, make-up artists liked what they saw and could make or break a career if they wanted to. Steve had managed to get out of the offers that didn’t tempt him and happily given in to the people who did excite him, people he would’ve been eager to spend a night with even without a reward. But there was a formality to it, a space where it was expected and it was clear what might happen if he said no. Universities were supposed to be different, a meritocracy, where Steve would advance so long as he put in the effort and did the work. _Favors_ were never meant to be part of it.

In a flash, he was back in that office being told he would _make handsome children_. Steve shook the thought away aggressively, swallowing down the nausea. 

“What can I do?” Tony asked in a whisper, doing everything not to add to Steve’s problems. “You are welcome to stay, if you like. There’s a guest room; a warm bath? A shower?”

Tony’s quiet suggestions almost went unheard, and still Steve could feel them.

“I don’t want to be alone,” he said, opening his eyes again. He didn't know Tony that well, but for indescribable reasons he made Steve feel safe. 

“You’re not alone, Steve,” Tony promised, gentle but unyielding. “You are not alone.”

They sat together for what could have been minutes or hours. Eventually, Tony helped Steve to the master bath. He got the water in order while Steve undressed, and as he turned to leave so Steve could shower in private, Steve reached for his hand. Tony didn’t hesitate to follow. 

Steve didn’t need a shower any more than Tony, but he leaned into Tony’s embrace, nuzzling into his shoulder and measuring his breath to echo the steady rise and fall of Tony’s chest. They stood in the warm shower long enough for Steve’s fingers to turn pruney, and in all that time, Tony’s hands never strayed from rubbing firm, soothing patterns over Steve’s back. Steve supposed he had to feel a little better at least when that realization landed with mild disappointment. 

By the time they had dried off, brushed their teeth, and gotten under the covers, Steve felt like himself again. Curled under Tony’s arm and cradled against his side, Steve closed his eyes and breathed in the clean scent of his skin. 

“Tony,” he said quietly, hoping not to wake him if Tony had already fallen asleep. Tony hummed under his breath, encouraging him to continue. “Are you moving back to LA after Bucky’s case is over?”

“Don’t have to,” Tony answered after a momentary silence. “Plenty of people divorce on the East Coast.”

Maybe it was a simple statement of fact, but Steve chose to interpret it the way he hoped Tony meant it. 

“Can we not be one of them?” Steve dared to ask, but he’d been so quiet - or maybe caught Tony so off-guard - that Tony picked his head up to look at him. “We’ve already made it past fifty hours. Why not see if we can do this for fifty days?”

“Steve, you can do so much better—”

“Shouldn’t my opinion of you be mine to make?” Steve pushed back before Tony insisted on saving Steve from himself. “If _you_ have a reason, Tony, it’s okay. That’s valid, and I’ll divorce you if that’s what you want. But I already know what I want. I’m asking what you want.”

Tony listened attentively, but he didn’t have an answer to offer after Steve’s little speech. Instead, he watched Steve with a soft smile, studying his face as if he was afraid he’d forget it too soon. 

“I’d like that, Steve,” he said in the end with a fond smile. “Fifty days.”

*** 

Since Steve had been expected to be in court on Tuesday, he’d already been excused from his classes in advance. But rather than doze the morning away, he got up when Tony did. He offered what help he could - about Hansen’s past in biochemistry and showed him the money trail Romanov would be using to proove Bucky’s payment for the two hired sex workers. 

If the judge found Bucky to have violated the terms of the prenuptial agreement, Hansen would walk away with seventy percent of all assets, property, and investments. From there, joint custody would be a hard-won dream. Tony would have to walk a narrow line between convincing the judge of Bucky’s innocence and without making him look like an unreliable father. 

When Tony left to meet Bucky before the hearing, Steve left for campus. The least he could do was wear a suit and look his best to support his childhood friend. Hastings Hall was a dead zone during classes, and Steve didn’t see a single student in the hallways - until he came to his own room. Sharon was sitting on the floor beside his room door with a worn paperback in her hands. 

The thought of where he’d last seen her left Steve shuddering with disgust, but there was no way to avoid her. From the top of the stairs, he cleared his throat and asked, “Are you looking for me?”

Sharon looked up from her book at once and hurried to her feet. “Hey, Steve,” she said, brushing off her jeans and fidgeting a little with her book. “I, yeah, I was hoping to find you. I heard what happened yesterday,” she said in a quieter voice, getting right to the point. “I heard what Hawley said to you, and I, well. First: ew, that’s the worst thing I’ve ever heard one person say to another. Two: if you want to press charges, or report her to the department, you, you can count on me.”

“...but you hate me,” were the first words out of Steve’s mouth. “Why would you—that would ruin your internship, too.”

“I deserve that,” Sharon admitted ruefully. “There’s no excuse, really. I apologize for how I treated you, Steve. You can say I had a bad source of information about you, someone I shouldn’t have trusted as much as I did. But anyone who’s spent time with you only has good things to say—especially Phil. I don’t know what magic you worked there, but he’s probably your biggest fan, bar none.”

Somewhere between her apology and mention of Phil Coulson, Steve noticed that something big and shiny was missing from Sharon’s left hand. 

“You broke up with Brock?”

“When I told him that Hawley came on to you - without any details,” she hurried to assure him, “he said it was probably your fault. You wore something or did something. There have been some red flags here and there, but victim blaming? That’s an unforgivable dickhead move.”

Steve watched her, overwhelmed with different thoughts and feelings. On one hand, he was a little jealous she’d had the good sense to dump his ass and Steve didn’t. On the other hand, he felt an unexpected sense of pride in her for never doubting what she’d heard, for believing that the blame was fully with Professor Hawley, and for taking a stance where others could easily have shrugged it off and moved on. Steve imagined a lot of people would for a six-carat diamond and lifelong financial security. 

“I appreciate it, Sharon,” he said as he slowly sorted through his jumbled thoughts. “I’ll let you know either way, but I really appreciate it.”

Sharon’s hesitant smile grew with genuine relief, then she quickly excused herself. She had a court case to get ready for, after all. 

*** 

Steve made it to court in time to get a seat in the front directly behind Bucky and Tony. Not that there was much competition for seats on their side. Hansen’s side of the courtroom, however, was teaming with family members and friends, people who’d come to support her and make the appropriate noises of support as needed. 

For better or worse, it was shaping up to be a quick case. When Romanov called her first witness to the stand, one of Hansen and Barnes’s shared accountants told the court that he had found two large sums of money paid out on the dates in question. The amounts paid were reflected in the bank statements offered by both sex workers as evidence. 

But when Tony had a chance to question him to explain how they knew who had made the payments - Barnes or Hansen - the accountant started dodging and sweating. The payment was made using their company account, which both spouses had access to at all times. There was no way to prove it was one or the other, except, as Tony rhetorically argued, what honest woman would pay for her husband’s philandering? 

When their next witness took the stand, the sex worker described arriving at Barnes’ office and accompanying him to a hotel room for the night in great detail. She knew where the private elevator was, she knew the name of Bucky’s private chauffeur, and she even recalled what side of the bed he slept on after. To back up the accountant, she provided an itemized list of services Barnes engaged her for that night. 

Tony only had one question for the witness, and he presented it as an array of five photographs: five similar looking flaccid penises, each with distinctly different manscaping. Since she remembered so much and had apparently spent all night with Barnes and even claimed to have performed oral sex, he only asked her one question: identify his client by his pubic hair. 

The woman’s gaze had flittered back to Mrs. Hansen. She explained that she couldn’t remember, that it had been too dark, but given her earlier testimony, Tony reminded her that she’d charged Barnes for multiple services over a six hour period. How was it possible that she could have spent six hours naked with a man and not know if he was hairless, ungroomed, or a compromise of the two? Surely whether a man had hairy or waxed balls would be abundantly obvious to a woman in her line of work. 

When she guessed wrong, Tony simply told her she was incorrect and handed the judge a folded note to identify the correct photograph. While Tony wanted the judge to know it wasn’t a trick question, no-one else needed to know any more private details about his client’s personal life. 

Steve sat in awe of the performance before him. Only hours ago, he’d had no hopes for his friend’s case - Hansen’s arguments against him had seemed to be irrefutable, and for Bucky to simply say he didn’t have a memory of those events had filled Steve with anxiety. But if Tony wasn’t ahead now, he was at the very least equal to whatever Natasha and her team had pulled together. 

And it seemed Natasha was coming to the same conclusion, and Steve scooted as close as he could to eavesdrop as the word ‘settle’ filtered through their conversation. 

“What do you mean you have no further witnesses?” Hansen hissed at Natasha, furious at the unexpected turn of events. “Call me to the stand.”

“We haven’t practiced cross examination in a case like this; he will tear you apart,” Natasha responded firmly and calmly. “If we settle, you can get half the assets and joint custody.”

“Listen to me, you bitch,” Hansen snapped, “I want my money; I earned that money! I had a promising modeling career, a future in science, and I gave it up for that man. I am not going to wind up a twenty-six year old mother of three with nothing to show for my time just because you didn’t prepare a better case!”

It took Steve a minute to realize what he’d just heard. In a hurry, he scooted closer to Tony and leaned over the barrier to whisper, “How old was she when she signed the prenup?”

Tony gave him a quizzical look, but rather safe than sorry, he leafed through his papers to compare the marriage and prenuptial agreements against her license. He turned around in his seat and Steve immediately leaned in closer to hear. 

“She was eighteen.”

“Then how can she be twenty-six if they’ve been married nine years?”

Steve watched as Tony’s eyes lit up in understanding, and to his right, Bucky’s whole face fell. If Steve was right, he had married a minor. 

“Sorry,” Steve said to his friend quietly, and as much as he wanted to reach out, he didn’t exactly want to draw attention to them either. Both of them watched Tony leaf through all the papers until he got to Hansen’s birth certificate. 

It was the work of seconds to confirm that Hansen’s age on her license had been changed to make her one year older. 

“Your Honor?” he said in a sudden rush of excitement. If they could invalidate the prenup, they were back to fighting for equal division of assets and joint custody—what Tony had described as a best case scenario only hours ago. “May I approach the bench?”

The judge waved him up, and Tony walked up with the prenup, the birth certificate, and her license. He explained what the judge was looking at, what implications it had on the case and the prenuptial agreement. 

After a brief reflection, the judge called Romanov up to see him. Tony explained the situation again and let Romanov look at the papers herself. Without an explanation for her client’s fraudulent age as written on her license, Romanov could only nod in understanding and return to her seat and explain it all to her own client.

The color drained from Hansen’s face just as the judge banged his gavel for their attention. 

“In light of this new evidence, it’s become clear to the court that Mrs. Hansen was a minor at the time that she signed the prenuptial agreement, which invalidates the contract. Seeing as the marriage lasted longer than four years, however, we may see a case for an equal division of all marital assets.” 

Bucky and Tony shared a look as the judge addressed the court, and Tony nodded in understanding. Once the judge finished, he was the first one on his feet to address the judge. 

“Your Honor, I find it highly suspicious that my client was accused of the precise indiscretions outlined in the prenuptial agreements to favor Mrs. Hansen in the event of a divorce. Accusations that, as I have demonstrated before the court, are unfounded and, I argue, fabricated by Mrs. Hansen for primary custody and a greater portion of Mr. Barnes’s assets,” he said, emphatic on his client’s behalf. “We contest joint custody of the children: primary custody of the children for an equal division of all assets and no additional alimony.”

As the judge turned to ask whether those were acceptable terms, Natasha turned to confer with Mrs. Hansen. It didn’t take her long to make up her mind and reluctantly nod in agreement. 

Natasha hesitated a moment longer to give her a chance to change her mind, then stood up to address the judge. “Your Honor, those terms are acceptable.”

“In that case, the court rules in favor of the defense. Mr. Barnes is hereby awarded primary custody of the children. Mrs. Hansen is awarded half of the marital assets, or thirty-seven million dollars.”

Steve leapt to his feet and threw himself at his friend who had collapsed in his seat in tears. Bucky spun around in his seat as soon as Steve’s arms were around him and hugged him back like a drowning man who’d finally been thrown a lifeline. He’d been so close to losing his family, and Steve couldn’t begin to imagine how overwhelming that kind of fear might be. So he did what little he could: held on tight, and offered quiet reassurances when he could that this was real - nobody would ever try to take his children away from him again. 

Tony stood up as Natasha walked over to speak with them, intercepting whatever conversation might have been directed at Steve while Bucky worked through the shock of adrenaline and relief running through him. Steve couldn’t hear what they were saying, but he watched as Natasha and Maria shook Tony’s hand in turn and walked away. 

“Interesting friends you got there,” Tony told Steve with a look that left Steve dying to know what those two had said. Before he could ask, however, Tony turned his attention to Bucky. 

“Mr. Barnes, it appears you and I have a lot of paperwork in our future,” he said with a broad grin. It wasn’t even about him, and Steve wanted nothing more than to reach over and haul Tony in for a kiss. 

“But if you happen to find a flight home that departs after five… I suggest you take it. No-one can stop you from going home to your kids anymore.”

*** 

Later that week, Steve packed a weekend bag and drove out to Tony’s temporary apartment for their first weekend together. It would be a ‘getting to know each other’ weekend, a miniature ‘is this more than an infatuation’ trial. And, if Steve had anything to say about it, a ‘let me show you how grateful I am for all that you did for my friend’ weekend. 

Those pockets of time slowly grew to include more than just a weekend, and by the third month, Steve had practically moved in with Tony in his new condo close to campus. During the day Steve had his classes and Tony worked, and in the evenings they found other ways to occupy their time - some nights that meant going to local performances or pub trivia, while other nights that meant staying in with a bottle of champagne and a rigged game of strip poker. 

On one unassuming Thursday night in December there was a standard FedEx envelope in the mail addressed to Tony. The envelope looked like it had travelled the country - to Los Angeles, to Malibu, to Manhattan, to the rental on Seaport Blvd., until finally it found him at his new condo in Cambridge. 

Steve gave it a curious look and carried it home with the rest of the papers and bills and advertisements. “Hey, babe? There’s a package for you.”

Tony laughed from somewhere in the house, and he soon appeared out of the kitchen. “Are you referring to yourself in the third person again?”

Steve rolled his eyes and handed him the envelope. “That package isn’t ready until after dinner, I’m starving. I swear, if Levinson had to do half of the hypos he assigned us, he would cry.”

He left Tony with a quick peck on the cheek and made his way to the kitchen to see what he could scrounge out of the fridge. They’d gone through a pizza-baking phase recently that had quickly become a calzone-making phase, and Steve hung in the open fridge door trying to decide between a mushroom, feta, and olive, and a ham and extra cheese. 

Steve was negotiating with himself about which salad he should make and which calzone said salad would be better with when suddenly a muffled cry caught his attention. He spun around and hurried back to the hallway where he’d last seen Tony—and sure enough, there he was, just where Steve had left him, and paler than Steve had ever seen him. 

“Babe?” he asked, intentionally gentling his tone so he wouldn’t sound as worried as he felt. “Tony, is something wrong? Did something happen?”

“I,” Tony stammered, choking on his own words, and if Steve wasn’t worried before, he feared he’d lose his cool any second until Tony coughed up a breathless, disbelieving laugh. 

“It’s, it’s our,” Tony tried again, wheezing through the laughter and the hapless tears. Steve’s eyes went immediately for the sheet of paper Tony had pulled out of the FedEx envelope, and without a second thought took it from Tony’s hands. 

“Oh, my, fucking—”

“Is this our—”

“It is!”

Steve didn’t know if he should laugh or cry. “Does that mean we’re not… we’re not—”

Tony must have noticed that Steve wasn’t enjoying the absurdity as much as he was, because he cleared his throat and wiped the tears of laughter from his eyes. “Looks like we’ve got a second chance, babe,” he said, his voice a little hoarse after all that laughter. “You sure you want to marry me?”

Steve didn’t like the sound of that (or anything, really) getting between them and their relationship, and instinctively he closed the distance between them and burrowed into Tony’s open embrace. 

“As far as I’m concerned, we still are,” he growled, but in difference to Tony who only seemed tickled by the childish mockery of a marriage certificate, Steve felt increasingly unsettled. 

“Unless… you don’t want to be?”

“Steve, I love you so much I’m living in Boston. In _Boston_ , Steve,” Tony reminded him, his tone as playful as he was serious. “We made it to fifty days; I think we can make fifty weeks.”

For reasons Steve couldn’t explain, it always amused him to hear how much Tony hated Boston - whether it was the Patriots, the Red Sox, or the Massholes themselves, it always warmed his heart. “I love you, too, Tony,” he whispered against Tony’s smiling lips, chasing every word with short, playful kisses. “Vegas or Atlantic City, you choose. I don’t care.” 

“I’m _not_ getting married in fucking Jersey,” Tony rumbled against him, until finally he had enough. He grabbed Steve by the hair and hauled him in for a kiss, deep, hungry, and possessive. 

Steve melted into him with a soft whimper of feverish excitement, but just as he was getting into it and had both hands rucked up under Tony’s sweater, Tony pulled him away by the hair and pinned him with a heated look. 

“Vegas it is,” he rasped, his voice pitched noticeably deeper after the kiss. Steve felt himself grow weak in the knees, twitching and aching all over for Tony’s attention. 

“Tomorrow, Steve. Pack a weekend bag. First thing after we land tomorrow, we’re getting married—and this time, we’ll do it right.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> P.S. The person who leaked the nuptials to the Boston Gazette tried to confess, but Steve didn't want to listen.


End file.
